The news last week that the Arsenal board were willing to re-address the issue of pricing for the upcoming season was warmly greeted. But upon hearing the news that they have continued with their plans to increase the ticket prices, one cannot help but feel disappointed that the club has chosen to take this path.
There is absolutely no justification for these courses of action – Arsenal fans already pay a huge amount of money for a season ticket to the Emirates, and given that relatively little money has been pumped into the playing side, it seems distinctly unfair to burden the supporters with an extra cost.
Supporters of a football club are not customers, and this is the important aspect of this debate. Indeed, they are willing to pay to be admitted entrance to the ground, but when offering support of your club becomes financially burdensome, something has gone wrong down the line.
A club is nothing without its fans who actually attend matches; the Premier League would not have its allure to a television audience if the matches were played in empty stadiums. Clubs should exclusively be looking to lower prices – or at the very least freeze them.
If the club wishes to treat football like a business, then they should act like one. In fact, the reality is that they do not do that, even in the slightest manner. If one goes into a shop, one expects to come out with that which one went in the shop intending to buy. At Arsenal, the money that season ticket holders spend on buying their seat is not obviously re-invested into footballing purchases; for example, new players or increased ‘Arsenalisation’ of the ground.
Indeed, this is not as simple an issue as how it has been outlined earlier in this piece – buying new players incessantly for vast sums of money does not improve a club financially, and arguably, shall not help significantly on the pitch either. There does come a point though when one has to correlate the price of season tickets with the financial ambitions of a club.
If a club is in the lower reaches of the football league, one pays less money for a season ticket. No-one wants Arsenal to go all out to sign superstars, but it would be appreciated if they were at least a little bit more competitive in the transfer market in line with the prices they charge.
According to the club’s Chief Executive, there will be a thorough rethink on ticket prices at the end of next season. It shall be of great interest to see what these plans actually are. However, there shall always remain a doubt.
If a complete rethink is to occur next year, then why raise the prices now? There is a question to which Arsenal shall no doubt be reluctant to respond.
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yes, someone has to keep paying wengers salary !
god forbid he left us !!!!
What a joke. Prices are already too high and there raising there prices again. It’s ridiculous.
no one forced u to buy the tickets or support them. just boycott them n thats it.
Every day I get up and look through the Forbes list of the richest people in America. If I’m not there, I go to work.