Ticket prices

In the Prem, which big club has been routinely lauded over the last decade or so for running its affairs properly, always balancing its books and refusing to sell out in the way others have done? Arsenal. Tottenham have become a counterpart in recent years, to some extent at least.

So what prices do Arsenal and Spurs charge their fans? Season tickets at the Emirates are more than a grand now; and at WHL, they're almost 1200 smackers. Horrific, unbelievable - but that's the only way Arsenal and Tottenham can compete in a mad, inflated beyond belief market. If they don't charge those prices, they just fall further and further behind and lose vital revenue in the process.

Don't blame the clubs. Blame the market itself; blame the authorities for doing nothing to stop it and in fact, rejoicing in it. In our case, we don't have a sugardaddy; all we have is TV money (massively reduced since relegation), parachute payments (which are temporary), selling players (but no-one wants to do that), a commercial department which is superb, and our attendances.

It is imperative that we are promoted. Failure to go back up will have significant and severe consequences; each year that we don't, it'll get harder and harder for us to do so. That necessitates ruthless decisions such as this. It's that simple. Football ceased to be a pure sport long ago. It's a business now - and any club which tries to ignore that reality quickly has another think coming.

Posted By: thebigfeller, Feb 20, 19:12:07