So the news out today is that we are being charged a massive £58 to go Manchester City for the away game on 14th December. I don’t think any of us are really surprised at this but the whole away ticket issue has been on the forefront lately and it’s getting worse. We charged City £62 last season I believe which is just a colossal amount for an away fan to have to pay. Our club is just as bad and are not helping the situation.
It’s got to take us fans doing something to stop this happening. We need to change the thinking of clubs on the away fan ticket price otherwise where does it stop? Before long you will have spent £200 before even walking out the door on match tickets and trains. With you having to drink and eat when at the game the average fan will not be able to afford the away trips any more. The problem is that when you raise the issue of fans not going to the games and not buying their ticket their response is always the same, if I don’t go someone else will. I understand this and they are right but the only way we can send a message is to vote with our feet and not go to the game. Make sure our away attendance at this game is one of our lowest ever and then people will realise.
Our own club hasn’t helped this situation and in fact we have probably inflamed it with the introduction of categorised games. The class A games are the most expensive in the league and whilst I don’t agree with the prices we charge, what we make our own fans cough up is our own business. This should not interfere with the price we charge away fans, and in fact I believe there should be no difference throughout the league on what away fans are charged. All clubs should charge the away fans the same price, £30/35 at a maximum.
Its happening throughout the league, not just with the so called big clubs like City and ourselves, Norwich charged Arsenal fans double the amount we made their fans pay at our ground. The so called smaller clubs see a cash cow when the big teams roll into town and they know they can charge what they like, as our excellent away fans will pay it and be there regardless.
I know I’m asking for a lot on this and it will probably fall on deaf ears but I encourage all Arsenal fans to not go to the City game, go down the pub with your mates and put £58 into the whip instead, have a few beers and a laugh with your pals in the boozer rather than line the Sheikhs pocket even more.
How they can charge that much when they have one of the richest men in the world who owns their club, not only that but their ground was free and given to them by the council! At least we had to pay for ours out of our own pockets!
Clubs need to follow the lead of Newcastle, Swansea, West Brom, Hull and Palace who have all entered into pricing agreements with each other to ensure away fans do not get charged over the odds. Fans of both clubs will pay the same amount when visiting each other which is a perfect idea. Have a look into this here. Hopefully other clubs take note of this and follow suit.
Have a look at these guys as well, trying to change things for the better
Norby
She Wore A Yellow Ribbon 
The reason City charge so much is one reason and one reason only, financial unfair play rules! If these rules had not been brought in then the sheikh would be allowed to subsidise you and your trip to manchester!
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1: Thats less than you charged us last season, and the tickets were released around Christmas, a time when pretty much everyone needs money (i paid it and went by the way, top day out).
2: We have the cheapest season tickets in the league and plan to go even lower once the stadium is expanded, i paid £350 for mine plus all 3 cup schemes (18-21)
3: Our club have said we will be charged half for away games far away (down south, Newcastle etc), the other half is being paid by the players.
4: Finally, your making out like its our fault when Arsenal and by far the worse club for ripping off fans, didn’t you once charge Spurs fans £94?
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Never charged more than £62 to away fans I don’t think but I did once shell out 90 odd quid for Chelsea at home, and 126 for Bayern.
Ticket prices are a joke, how anyone can be expected to shell out perhaps 3 grand on tickets plus another couple of thousand on travel etc. like Away Scheme/home and away travel club members do is criminal. Nothing will change under the current system of putting business over fans i.e that Hull Tigers nonsense.
Everyone’s sick to death of the ridiculous fees for being a fan home or away. Took the coach to Sunderland as a return for the game on National Rail was £122 when I checked, factoring in a £35 ticket and food/drink it would have been nigh on £180. If I remember right, I managed to sort a ticket and journey to Blackburn for £45 in 2007, a f*cking bargain when compared to today’s prices.
If only the FA stopped this crap and capped away priced tickets at £20-£30.
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I did say a few times in the article that our club is as much to blame as any other for the current pricing schemes around the league. I used this particular example to highlight how bad it’s getting but there are others equally as bad I agree.
Our 18-21 tickets are also cheaper so that’s no argument.
The club paying half on your aways is what our club needs to do, or look to enter the pricing agreement I mentioned.
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Whilst I agree with the notion of reducing ticket prices for away fans, I don’t agree with your sentiment. You need to get ALL fans of ALL clubs on board, but using the less than subtle digs at our club isn’t going to help you. Aside from the FFP issue, we took on the CoM stadium when we were dirt poor and paid money we didn’t have to turn it into what it is now. At the time, I don’t recall anyone complaining…
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This should not be a partisan issue as all fans City or arsenal should sing from the same song sheet. One point on the stadium, it was not given free by the council, Sport England and MCC were involved along with City in the initial build scheme. City gave them Maine Road and paid for the conversion costs from the original, without City’s input pre Commonwealth games the stadium couldn’t have been built.
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Y’know I can see this all going the same way that sport in the US has traveled down. That is no away team support whatsoever and only home supporters, making the atmosphere about as exciting as a wet fart. At the end of the day the clubs do not give a shit where you are coming from or who you are supporting to them all you are is a pound sign.
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Moneys tight these days, yet the cost of these tickets goes up and up. Appauled with all concerned really.
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So, I must be tripping….surly this isn’t a ‘£62 a seat at r gaff’ gooner moaning about ticket prices? Gotta be a wind up, can y seriously not see how fucking stupid u sound??
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Surely the issue isn’t really about money, it’s about competitive advantage?
By making the prices as obscenely high as Arsenal do, and the likes of City, it will lower the number of away fans attending. And advantage for the home side. And if somehow they still sell out then happy days in the commercial front. A win win.
The only thing a boycott of the City game will do is help City when the Arsenal team needs their fans the most.
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As a City fan (season ticket) I agree 100%. Ticket prices for away fans are to high. Some years ago Wigan upped the price for City fans from £25 one year to £35 the following year. They always gave City 5000 tickets and always sold out as its only a short trip. The year it went up only 1000 ish City fans went to the game and Wigan lost a lot of money not only on ticket sales but pies, programmes, beer, tea etc. The next season they only charged £25 again!! Lesson learned. The only way to bring prices down is to vote with your feet and not go to the game.
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Was Arsenal and its fans not one of the main supporters of Financial ‘Fair’ Play?
Welcome to the dark side of it… clubs having to maximise revenue so they can spend ‘fairly’, and look who suffers… us.
It’s a disgrace, but Platini and his crew play a big part in it.
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City pay rent annually for the use of the stadium, something close to £2 million a season, so to say it is free is not true. City also pumped in close to £20 million to have the stadium made fit for football after the commonwealth games. So ball park now is a figure of close to £40 million spent on the ground.
Arsenal, Utd, Liverpool, spurs and Chelsea started all this high ticket prices. City fans have been lucky to get such an owner but FFP brought in by 4 of the previous clubs mentioned is to blame for actually stopping our owner doing anything but try and get money in to continue to compete.
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As per the other prat, 2m a year is fuck all. Should be 20m a year. That’s what arsenal are paying in ‘mortgage’. Typical council house dwellers, living cheap but well.
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As per usual! Ill informed! Spouting of jealous bile!
Manchester City have a Great stadium. They pay Manchester council a fee for any attendance over the capacity of their Old ground Maine Road (which at the time was 37,500), which they gave in Part exchange for an unfinished Stadium. They payed £20M + to convert (what was going to be a “White Elephant”) an Athletics Stadium into a 48,000 all seater Football Stadium.
Yes it could be classed as a Council House (to ALL the Jealous bitter haters!) but at the same time, MCFC had used something that after the commonwealth games would have become an unused expense, given the local community (Moss Side) a new area on which to build much needed new housing, and completely transformed a run down part of Manchester (Beswick) into a bustling new area, and are in the process/about to build one of, if NOT THE, most advanced training facilities in the world.
Just to mention another club from a nearby City, Salford! They had the missfortune to have their football ground bombed during WWII and had nowhere to play football matches until another local team, Manchester City, allowed them to use their ground Maine Road(at which they set their record home (really??) attendance), whilst Manchester COUNCIL! repaired their ground, and then in 1965/6 the Salford clubs ground was chosen to host some matches for the World Cup which was being played in England, and again the Council and the Football Association payed for renovations and expansion of their ground! Just Saying!!!!!!
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‘Lining the Sheikh’s pocket’?
So who’s pockets were we lining when you charged us £62 last season?
Arsenal fan in hypocrisy shocker.
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Whilst I agree with the principle of the post; you’ve stuck the boot in at times unnecessarily and inaccurately.
“Lining the Sheikh’s pocket” – Anyone with a brain knows this is not the cause of ticket prices. He wouldn’t even notice a difference if we gave you your allocation for free. This is about FFP and turnover to satisfy Michel Platini among others.
Also – The Etihad wasn’t free and given to us. We rent the stadium from the council using the proceeds of….you guessed it….gate receipts.
I’m all for fans speaking out and coming together to attack the situation, but if you’re going to start a campaign, you need fans of all clubs on board, and not have (inaccurate) cheap shots at the clubs in question.
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2million a year is practically free. Arsenal are repaying 20-30million a year to pay off the stadium debt. You basically have a council house where you are paying next to nothing. 2mil a year is 2 games gate receipts. Not exactly breaking the bank are you? Government should be charging you 20m a year. Freeloaders.
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Firstly, it isn’t £2 million a year – it’s £3 million a year
Secondly, we’ll be paying that for the duration of the lease which is 250 years whereas the £20-£30 million you’re paying per annum is only for the next few years. If anything, we’ll have paid far more than you eventually yet you’ll own your own stadium and we won’t own ours
Thirdly, we gave up the ownership of one ground (Maine Road) as part of the deal to become tenants at the City Of Manchester Stadium
Fourthly, we paid approximately £20 million to upgrade the current ground to a football stadium from an athletics stadium.
Hardly freeloaders eh?
Now, back on the subject of these ticket prices. I’m not interested in getting into an argument with Arsenal fans about FFP and what’s driving all this (I just felt the record needed putting straight about the myth that City got their stadium for free which is far from the case) because that isn’t going to get us anywhere. The bottom line is that the £58 they’re being charged at our place and the £62 we were charged at the Emirates last season is too high. IIRC, Arsenal fans were generally supportive of the decision of some City fans not pay the £62 last season and instead of getting into petty squabbles we should do likewise. One thing most football fans can agree on is that the cost of tickets for away games is generally too much once you factor in all the other costs that make up the average away day.
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Ok, another gooner that has no idea…. we pay £2m a year PLUS a percentage of gate receipts above the capacity of Maine Road, it is also a 100 year lease.
Our owner tried to buy the stadium from the council but they wouldn’t sell it outright.
I love the bitterness from Arsenal fans, stay classy Arsenal, stay classy.
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Cockernee muppet
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Haven’t Arsenal fans be crying for FFP to come in? Well our owners could, if they wished, not charge home fans or away fans anything for the match. However MCFC would lose a vast amount of money from gate receipts (not a problem as our owners are filthy rich) and then be punished for it by FFP. Unfortunately clubs now have to maximise their revenues so they can buy the best players and pay the highest wages, otherwise they are banned from Europe. Fortunately investments in the stadium and infrastructure don’t count towards FFP, and we are lucky enough to see our owner invest 200m in a new academy and further money in expanding the stadium.
I would love to see a cap on away ticket prices and also home tickets. However it won’t happen with the big clubs in Europe due to FFP.
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exactly how much did you pay for the emirates out of your own pocket mate?
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‘Do unto others as they would have done unto you’. Arse charged City fans £62, so guess what? they are having it stuck back up their cockney arses. Poetic justice and for an Arse fan to complain about it is the ultimate irony. Welcome to FFP you unworthy southern jizz monkeys. Meantime, City will continue to come shopping for your better players and Arse will show interest in City players who aren’t quite good enough to play at the Etihad. It’s good to be filthy rich. City – ruining football since 2008.
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Oh the irony ! And you expect the Sheik to subsidise your travel as well ! What a to55er !
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mike well said blue
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When someone writes an post he/she maintains the idea of a user in his/her brain that
how a user can know it. Therefore that’s why this paragraph is amazing.
Thanks!
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