Anyone who's been to a game this season will know that English football remains scandalously overpriced at almost every level. It costs £51 for a Liverpool fan to sit at Old Trafford, £26 for a junior ticket at West Ham United, and £18 in the Conference - in the Conference! - to watch Darlington's home game with Gateshead.
Not so in Germany, where thanks to safe standing and strict rules governing the ownership of Bundesliga clubs ticket prices remain far lower than in England. So low in fact that Borussia Dortmund fans have announced a boycott of tomorrow's Ruhr derby against Schalke in protest at being asked to pay 22 euro for a standing ticket.
It's unlikely this could ever happen in England for the simple reason that supporters aren't organised enough (the Dortmund boycott is being co-ordinated by 59 separate fan groups; some English clubs don't even have one). The irony is, with an economic recession and most English football clubs struggling with debt, the average football fan holds more power than they have for a long time.
All it takes is for them to realise it.
3 comments:
Stranded down south in August, I thought I'd go to the Spurs v Man City game. Nothing less than £70. I decided against it, and watching it on telly later was glad I had.
A West Ham supporter I got talking to told me that he'd stopped taking his two sons to the match: by the time they got there, got the tickets, something to eat, programmes, etc, it was coming out at £250. Quite a price for an afternoon's entertainment, (if that noun applies to watching West Ham).
Mind you, in Scotland, it's around the £20 mark, and all but the auld firm grounds are embarrassingly empty.
Some would say that's because of the auld firm. How many buses leave the likes of Falkirk for Ibrox and Parkhead every other week?
My mate would gladly see shot of the both of them - but then he's a St Mirren fan.
Land of Arnies.
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