Against Modern Football

[carlos_the_jackal]

I feel for families wanting to go have a day out watching their favourite football team.

I know some go to the local conference team - to see Southport for example is about £15 for the most expensive ticket.

The United fans who split to form their own AFC club was a good idea.

I wonder if that's the way to go - still support Everton but have an AFC club which is run by fans -there is lots here who have kids who would love to take them to see a match every week. Were it doesn't cost £30 per person for a family of four.

I would suspect same goes for the RS.. Something similar run as AFC United but for families and fans in Merseyside doesn't matter whom you support - for a dad or mum to take the kids to watch a football game. That doesn't cost the Earth... Let's face it a lot of people in Merseyside can't afford to watch games and it's wrong.

There are already local non-league sides out there. All the likes of FC United and AFC Liverpool do is take away support from the likes of these. If people really want, they can go and watch Marine, Prescot Cables or Bootle.

 

[Azzurri]

It's a corporate crime.

Columns from left to right: cheapest ticket in 1989; cheapest ticket in 2011 (if it had been subject to general inflation); actual cheapest ticket in 2011; inflation of ticket price faced by football supporters.

Liverpool

Arsenal

Manchester United

Everton

Tottenham Hotspur

Aston Villa

[TD="align: center"]£4[/TD]
[TD="align: center"]£7.09[/TD]
[TD="align: center"]£45[/TD]
[TD="align: center"]1025%[/TD]

[TD="align: center"]£5[/TD]
[TD="align: center"]£8.86[/TD]
[TD="align: center"]£51[/TD]
[TD="align: center"]920%[/TD]

[TD="align: center"]£3.50[/TD]
[TD="align: center"]£6.20[/TD]
[TD="align: center"]£28[/TD]
[TD="align: center"]700%[/TD]

[TD="align: center"]£4.50[/TD]
[TD="align: center"]£7.97[/TD]
[TD="align: center"]£36[/TD]
[TD="align: center"]700%[/TD]

[TD="align: center"]£7[/TD]
[TD="align: center"]£12.40[/TD]
[TD="align: center"]£47[/TD]
[TD="align: center"]571%[/TD]

[TD="align: center"]£5[/TD]
[TD="align: center"]£8.86[/TD]
[TD="align: center"]£25[/TD]
[TD="align: center"]400%[/TD]

This has just helped me with some coursework. Nice one Dave-ek

 

[Brennan]

The solution is simple. Player salary caps are illegal, so you introduce a team salary cap and allow the teams to divide up that wage bill accordingly.

But it will never happen. There are far too many hangers on who make big money from massive transfer deals and signing on fees.

If the wages were capped clubs wouldn't be forced to charge such crazy amounts of money just to try and stay in business.

Platini has made all the right noises on this issue but has so far failed to live up to them.

 

[BigBlueConk]

The solution is simple. Player salary caps are illegal, so you introduce a team salary cap and allow the teams to divide up that wage bill accordingly.

But it will never happen. There are far too many hangers on who make big money from massive transfer deals and signing on fees.

If the wages were capped clubs wouldn't be forced to charge such crazy amounts of money just to try and stay in business.

Platini has made all the right noises on this issue but has so far failed to live up to them.

Godd points and well made. I have been saying something similar for years. They do it/did it in rugby league don't they?

 

[nigelcoyb]

Until someone invents another game/pastime to compete football can do and charge what it wants, the people running it know it and couldn't give a fck what happens 20 yrs down the line.

Passion has been replaced with contempt and the love of a club passed down from father to son/daughter is dwindling - whisper it gently but football is a bit naff.

People are gradually realising paying through the nose for such little value is madness, just look at cup attendances clubs treat the competitions as a joke virtually conning attending fans. Once City clean up nailing the last vestige of pretence that the EPL is anything BUT a financial league that's when league attendances will go the same way.

It'll be like wrestling in 15 yrs - brazenly false and treated as a laugh.

 

[Brennan]

One other thing i will say, i'm not sure why people are attacking individual clubs like Everton over this. The raising of ticket prices is a result of rising wages in the main, the fact that most of the clubs in the league barely make a profit should tell you that. They're not ripping off the fans, it's the constant wage inflation (thanks to corrupt agents and a total lack of any financial restrictions) that force these price rises.

 

[DualityNSNO]

The solution is simple. Player salary caps are illegal, so you introduce a team salary cap and allow the teams to divide up that wage bill accordingly.

But it will never happen. There are far too many hangers on who make big money from massive transfer deals and signing on fees.

If the wages were capped clubs wouldn't be forced to charge such crazy amounts of money just to try and stay in business.

Platini has made all the right noises on this issue but has so far failed to live up to them.

Like in the MLS?

I think that's a good idea, but it won't happen, or at least not soon, I fear.

 

[WA Toffee]

The Australian system is not too bad. Clubs have a salary cap, but they are also allowed to sign an Australian Marquee (sp?) player and an overseas marquee player outside of the cap. This means that the playing field is pretty much level, but also allows us to bring in players such as Del Piero without reducing other players wages.

 

[stanleypark]

It's a primarily football problem not an Everton one.

If Everton were to do something similar by themselves then all I can think of is to have a larger stadium, go for cheap prices so that quantity of fans makes up for the cash shortfall for high prices.

However I don't think that easy. Half price tickets doesn't mean double the fans.

You have clubs like Boro or Sunderland who have loads of empty seats so they have experience of pricing to get more in and their tickets aren't necessarily the cheapest.

 

[ToffeeBlueNose]

The solution is simple. Player salary caps are illegal, so you introduce a team salary cap and allow the teams to divide up that wage bill accordingly.

But it will never happen. There are far too many hangers on who make big money from massive transfer deals and signing on fees.

If the wages were capped clubs wouldn't be forced to charge such crazy amounts of money just to try and stay in business.

Platini has made all the right noises on this issue but has so far failed to live up to them.

Something like this should happen but the players and agents will never let it happen now.

 

[Papa Shango]

I knew a lad who was a Charlton fan when they were in the premiership and lived in London and all that. He actually gave up on English football and started to support PSG going to the matches and all that because it actually cost him less to travel to the game and back and pay for a ticket than it would going down the road to watch his local side.

 

[Royal Blue Jersey]

Football clubs continue to exploit bonds forged in the fan's heydays of the 60s, 70s and 80s, but it is becoming more difficult than ever for generations to pass the loyalty they feel onto the next; football has modernised and commercialised beyond all recognition, support is both global and transient, there is such a wealth of football from a variety of sources on offer at all times that people are no longer tied down to 3pm Saturday kick off with their dad at the local ground. Back then you took what you were offered, I imagine, unless like in Liverpool you had the choice of two teams. My dad has passed his fanatical devotion on to me but I'm lucky that we can afford to go, and also lucky that I appreciated the devotion, I bought into it, and now Everton will be reaping the rewards of that unquantifiable, emotional investment for years.

 

[nsno-chris]

Greedy Footballers + Greedy Agents + Sky funding the problem = us soft arses footing the bill.

The bubble will burst one day, its getting out of hand and it will be like a house of cards collapsing. Its a tightrope and its us who keeps it ticking over, either directly through the club or indirect through Sky subsrciptions etc.

Within 20 years, if this keeps up and nobody gets a grip of the finances, I can see quite a number of clubs not exisiting.