Arsenal ticket prices to break £100 barrier


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Reggie Perrin

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http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/fo...y-charging-landmark-price-match-day-seat.html

:eek::eek::eek:

Arsenal may have been founded as a team for factory staff and featured as an iconic working-class club in the film of Nick Hornby's best-seller Fever Pitch, but they are about to take another giant step away from their traditional, core support.

The cost of an 'ordinary' seat for a Premier League game at the Emirates Stadium in the New Year is poised to break the £100 barrier - which would make them the most expensive non-hospitality seats in the history of English football. It will also push ticket prices into a frightening new era.

Even after years of becoming accustomed to the top flight's 'prawn sandwich brigade', the struggle of ordinary fans to pay for admission can only get harder once the landmark price has been reached as a result of the planned rise of VAT to 20 per cent on January 4.

Arsenal could choose to absorb the tax rise and not pass it on to fans, but there has been no indication yet that supporters will be spared the hike.

The club's website booking page warns: 'Please note that, with the VAT increase due in January 2011, our matchday ticket prices will be subject to change.'

Malcolm Clarke, chairman of the Football Supporters' Federation, said: 'A £100 ticket in the present climate is ridiculous. It is proof that football is not living in the same world as the rest of us.
'The game has more money going into it than ever before and it is not helping fans. Football is no longer a game that is readily accessible to all sections of the community.'

The Premier League has become a rich man's playground in recent years, with foreign owners ploughing money in at the top and fans footing a share of the bill at the bottom.

The English game has changed a great deal since standing was banned at top-flight stadia in 1994.

But the image of swathes of working-class fans on Highbury's North Bank in the 1997 film Fever Pitch seems a world away from Arsenal's potential new level of pricing, which would come into effect from the home game against Manchester City on January 5.

A £100 ticket would make watching Arsenal 11 times more expensive than following Bundesliga side Borussia Dortmund. The German team charge just £9 for their cheapest seat.

'Prices have risen way beyond the rate of inflation, and the bigger clubs have gone the furthest over the last decade,' added Clarke.

The most expensive normal seats at the Emirates Stadium - in the centre of the upper tier for 'category A' games against popular opponents - are £94 per person, plus a booking fee of up to £2.30 and £2.20 postage.

That makes £98.50 for a typical purchase. But, with VAT rising from 17.5 per cent to 20 per cent, that ticket would break the £100 barrier for the first time.

No club can afford to charge such prices throughout their grounds and stay busy, and Arsenal have a wide range of prices, from £48 to £94 for 'Category A' games against top opposition such as Chelsea, Manchester United and Tottenham.

It costs from £33 to £66 for Premier League games against lesser sides but the bill for a family of four could still top their weekly food shopping bill.

Arsenal, who are repaying the debt from building the £390million stadium, are already the most expensive club to watch on their own ground in Britain by some margin, and a recession is not perhaps the ideal time to be breaking the £100 barrier.

Season ticket-holder and author Tom Watt said: 'It does seem an extraordinary amount of money.
'If somebody can afford to pay that fair play to them but, while people complain about a lot of things at Arsenal, value for money is not one of them.'

Arsenal's cheapest adult season ticket for 2010-11 cost £893, while their most expensive 'ordinary' season ticket, which has no hospitality, was £1,825. Liverpool were the next most expensive for 2010-11 at £680, followed by Tottenham (£650), West Ham (£585) and Chelsea (£550).

Blackburn had the cheapest adult season ticket at £224 - just over twice the cost of a single highend ticket at the Emirates.

The club with the next most expensive single ticket price in England is Tottenham, where the most expensive 'normal' seat is £76 per game, which will increase to £78 when VAT rises in January, according to Spurs' official website.

The most expensive ordinary seat at Chelsea costs £73, and at Manchester United just £49.
 
corporate arsenal


their membership pyramid is a joke , glad we dont have to put up with that
 
I must have missed the moment we started taking anything the mail said as gospel truth. :lol:
 
corporate arsenal


their membership pyramid is a joke , glad we dont have to put up with that

Mental that amount of money for a football match! I think it was under a pound when i started going! If Sunderland ever do that il not be bothering with it!
 
Mental that amount of money for a football match! I think it was under a pound when i started going! If Sunderland ever do that il not be bothering with it!

i know a few people who buy a season ticket between them or have a company who buys them

these guys arent poor but they share season tickets, mental
 
sports section is usually canny to be fair

they'll always find a way of twisting the truth ever so slightly. We all know that ticket prices are an absolute disgrace. We don't need a "shock horror story" from the Daily Mail to get us all upset. Just another ever so controversial story from the Mail.
 
Or as little as £33 depending on if you can actually read beyond the hype, and not be distracted by some cute statistical mumbo-jumbo.

Arsenal are the model of how PL clubs can be successfully run in the modern economic and footballing climate. They recently announced a 73% rise in profits.

The Emirates is almost universally acknowledged as being about the best there is in the country, and as "Lofty" says, you can hardly say their fans are not getting value for money.
 
they'll always find a way of twisting the truth ever so slightly. We all know that ticket prices are an absolute disgrace. We don't need a "shock horror story" from the Daily Mail to get us all upset. Just another ever so controversial story from the Mail.

So isnt it true then? :confused: I know its a lot down sarf but even if its not quite as much, its still a staggering amountfor some of the big London clubs! Especially if you take kids aswell. With all this SKY money the clubs should be cutting the prices! Thank god for Quinny!
 
makes getting comped club seats at the emirates all the sweeter
 
they'll always find a way of twisting the truth ever so slightly. We all know that ticket prices are an absolute disgrace. We don't need a "shock horror story" from the Daily Mail to get us all upset. Just another ever so controversial story from the Mail.

It cant do any harm tbh. I'm normally against the mail, and against the shock horror stories, but anything that might make people sit up and take notice of the extent to which supporters are being either ripped off or priced out of attending is to be applauded as far as I'm concerned. I had never seen a breakdown of the ticket prices for watching Arsenal, and it is interesting to see just how much they have been charging, and how much other season tickets cost. They are using the VAT increase to make a story out of it, but at least it highlights just how ridiculous the costs are. Hopefully at some point someone actually tries to do something about it, but for now I am just glad to see an article that raises awareness about the extent of the problem
 
It cant do any harm tbh. I'm normally against the mail, and against the shock horror stories, but anything that might make people sit up and take notice of the extent to which supporters are being either ripped off or priced out of attending is to be applauded as far as I'm concerned. I had never seen a breakdown of the ticket prices for watching Arsenal, and it is interesting to see just how much they have been charging, and how much other season tickets cost. They are using the VAT increase to make a story out of it, but at least it highlights just how ridiculous the costs are. Hopefully at some point someone actually tries to do something about it, but for now I am just glad to see an article that raises awareness about the extent of the problem

it's more them ramping up the psychological tipping point of £100 to watch a game, in the same way as we all thought the world would end when petrol went over £1 a gallon (yes a gallon, remember them?). I dread to think what we're paying a gallon now. I remember when I could run a car all around for a week for £5, my missus's car took £75 worth to fill last week :eek:
 
anything that shocks people regardin ticket prices is a good thing in my opinion

i dont give a shit if its the mail , the guardian or the daily sport reporting it

arsenal and spurs are a rip off
 
it's more them ramping up the psychological tipping point of £100 to watch a game, in the same way as we all thought the world would end when petrol went over £1 a gallon (yes a gallon, remember them?). I dread to think what we're paying a gallon now. I remember when I could run a car all around for a week for £5, my missus's car took £75 worth to fill last week :eek:

Aye, thats a fair point. They are really highlighting this £100 thing, even though it isnt an Arsenal price increase, it is only going up to that amount because of the VAT increase. Like I say, its still good to see the costs highlighted imo, even the "cheap" price of £33 for a category B game is expensive, and obviously there will be a limited number of seats available at that price. Clubs are just pricing so many fans out of the game that I'm glad to see it highlighted somewhere, even if it would be better highlighted in a decent publication that doesnt have to use the VAT increase to make its point
 
anything that shocks people regardin ticket prices is a good thing in my opinion

i dont give a shit if its the mail , the guardian or the daily sport reporting it

arsenal and spurs are a rip off

Our tickets last season weren't that bad in the scheme of things as I recall, wasn't it around the £32 mark? Spurs were about the same as this season (£34?). Birmingham are amongst the worst offenders, charging about £40.

The time to worry is when we become Cat A games for them.
 
it's more them ramping up the psychological tipping point of £100 to watch a game, in the same way as we all thought the world would end when petrol went over £1 a gallon (yes a gallon, remember them?). I dread to think what we're paying a gallon now. I remember when I could run a car all around for a week for £5, my missus's car took £75 worth to fill last week :eek:

When i started Taxiing about 15yrs ago id put a tenner in for a Sat night now i put about £60 in! Wish i got the same comparrison in fares!
Football has gone mental in the last few years daft wages inflated admission prices! Itl take one of the big clubs to go out of buisness to stop this madness!
The likes of Sheff Wed, Portsmouth etc should be a wake up call but it doesnt seem to be!
 
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