Man City Return 900 Unsold Tickets To Arsenal As Fans Quite Rightly Balk At Ridiculous £62 Price

Chris Wright

9th, January 2013

19 Comments

By Chris Wright

“£62? You must think we’re bananas or something!”

As you may be aware by now, Man City have today returned almost a third of their allocated tickets for Sunday’s game against Arsenal at the Emirates after fans balked and then boycotted over paying the frankly ridiculous £62 ticket price – and that’s even before you start factoring in additional expenditure like travel, food and watered-down, room temperature lager.

According to the Guardian’s number crunchers, exactly 912 0f City’s 3,000-ticket away allocation have been returned unsold. Can you blame City fans for taking umbrage?

The match is classed as a ‘Category A’ Premier League game and therefore demands the highest ticket price, with Arsenal fans also having to pay £62 for seats in the equivalent home section of the stadium – though we’re reliably informed that there are some tickets in the upper tiers which are selling for nearly double that.

Egads. The cost of an afternoon at the football is just far, far too high. I refuse to pay £25/30 to watch Forest in the Championship; I can only sympathise with those who have to deal with the Premier League’s piggish inflation and sucking greed on a week-to-week basis.

In a business where employees can apparently feel quite entitled to be indignant over ‘only’ being offered £50/60/80,000-a-week to play football, what chance do we – the proles herded through the turnstiles every weekend who part-fund this excess – really stand in keeping up with the exponential expenditure?

According to a mate of mine, it’s now £16 to watch Burton Albion in League Two. It may not sound like a lot comparitively but this is League Two we’re talking about. League. Two. It really isn’t long before the bottom falls out entirely.

Hopefully City’s stark refusal to pay marks the start of something. As with all football-related protests, the only clear way to turn the executive’s heads is to not turn up of a Saturday. They’ll soon realise they can’t continue to wring the wallets of their captive audience forever.

Any thoughts Pies fans?

Posted in Arsenal, FAIL, Featured, Man City

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19 Comments

  1. Manolo Garnix says:

    These ridiculous prices make me happy to be a fan in Germany. We (still) have save stands, I pay about 10 pound to see my team and there are protests whenever the prices go above 20 euros. I think it’s about time for the fans to unite against the price policy. It may seem difficult to change something, but if no one speaks up, the gentrification of the English football will continue, making it impossible for younger fans to enjoy a match in the stadium instead of on the couch.

  2. Ed says:

    This weekend’s top of the table clash between Gillingham and Port Vale is £23. That’s far more than I ever want to be paying for a league two game.

  3. Jim says:

    Maybe its just the fact man city dont have 3,000 fans, after all when was the last time that council flat they call a stadium was at full capacity…

  4. Liam says:

    Leeds wanted £38 off us poor Bolton fans on New Years Day. As if life isn’t bad enough being a Whites fan.

  5. Reef says:

    Head to the BSP and a seat to watch a Wrexham game will set you back £18.

  6. Gazz says:

    How much do City charge when they play Arsenal at home?
    I remember watching Aston Villa in the Holt end, just £25. That was a few years ago now though

  7. Dave says:

    City fans are right to do this even taking into account London prices this is digraceful….I think £25 is a reasonable price to pay for what is simply an hour and a halfs entertainment. Time for a maximum wage for players to halt this methinks.

  8. SL says:

    they also returned the entire lower tier for QPR as well.

  9. BSH says:

    Sorry City fans. We don’t have a billionaire sugar daddy to pay our players’ wages. You and Chelsea have driven up the cost of operating a football club through ridiculous transfer fees and wages, and Arsenal has to pay the bill somehow.

  10. Dan says:

    Newcastle’s away trip to man utd in the opening stages of the capital one cup cost away supporters (and probably home fans) £45. Large parts of Old Trafford were closed on the night and away support sung “£45 your taking the piss.” Terrible exploitation

  11. Cabbage says:

    In a weird way City are partly to blame. If they (and Chelsea,PSG etc.)hadn’t come along and fucked up the market, other teams wouldn’t be upping prices just to remain competitive in the league. Saying that, the prices are ludicrously high and i wouldn’t pay anything near that amount to watch a match.

  12. dnpma says:

    fans of the club which boosts inflation like no other in the game dont want to pay inflated prices at another club which feels the need to charge that much to compete. thats ironic, isnt it?

  13. Rob says:

    I blame Suarez

  14. Matt says:

    @BSH- It not really the total of Arsenal’s wage bill, which is 4th highest in the EPL (although that figure was from last year so Arsenal and Liverpool may have switched places) it’s the structure of the bill. If you play squad players virtually the same as stars it’s going to cause problems. Perhaps if Arsenal restructured their wage bill the wouldn’t have to charge as much for tickets.

  15. marajonna says:

    Sadly they’ll resell the tickets and the directors will get their money anyway.

    The moral arsenal model of sustainability is a myth, they survive by fleecing their fans, I’d rather an Arab or an oligarch foot the bill thanks.

  16. TravisKOP says:

    Why do you think no1 goes to games in italy? inflation + no jobs = no money for 50 dollar tickets

  17. rad says:

    what did u expect, they throw all their money to Ferdinand

  18. adam says:

    but city were perfectly happy to charge arsenal fans 51 quid to watch them. 11 quid difference. they need to sit down.

  19. Anonymous says:

    I honestly think that there would have to be pretty few people left before the guys in charge would do anything with the ticket prices. In todays football most of each clubs revenue come from the TV rights & sponsors, and so as long as the “brand” of each club keeps being blasted out through television, and people pay to watch matches on TV, ticket prices will keep rising.

    Interesting bit about this in I Am The Secret Footballer, I seem to remember. And it is unquestionably wrong. Surely, if most of your money comes from other sources than those passing through the gates, it makes sense you keep local people (or; potential merch shoppers, as a football director would see them) interested & invested in the club.

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