The Great Arsenal Ticket Rip Off

With the release of the ticket prices for the 2006/07 season, it is clear once again that in order to keep this club great, it’s the average fan who has to suffer.

Gone have the days when the working class fan could attend all the home games with his kids in tow and still have enough money to buy them all a burger.

The massive salaries that the players of today earn have inflated the price of a match ticket to astronomical highs. However it seems to be the Ashburton faithful who will suffer the most.

Arsenal’s top ticket price has been revealed at a staggering £94 for one solitary match, an unbeleivable £60 HIGHER than Liverpool FC’s most expensive ticket. High cost of living in the south would explain a small increase in prices but a 60 quid difference is just plain obsurd.

So we need to ask the question, why?

When an Arsenal spokes person was posed the question, the simple reply was,

‘We are very comfortable with our pricing’

Well I bet they are, all sat on their big fat arses raking it in. If they ticket price were so steep to help with the finiacial burden of our spanking new stadium, why not just say? Simple, because that has nothing to do with it. It appears to me that these hikes are nothing more than fat cat greed that is ruining today’s game.

So what can we do to remedy this?

There is no solution. Arsenal’s fan base is so huge that as mass boycott would ultimately fail because there are literally hundred’s of thousands of Gooners who very rarely get to games due to the high demand of tickets, for every fan with a ticket there are another 20 without. The stadium would easily be filled.

As long as Arsenal continue to be a successful team, there will always be hangers on who use their attendance of matches as some kind of status symbol to brag to their friends and business partners about, and as long as we have these hangers on, the stadium will always be full and the board will always have a reason to keep the prices high.

The question is, which would you prefer?

A successful team, winning trophies and playing football that is recognised as some of the most awesome around the world with out of this world ticket prices?

Or

A mediocre team playing the George Graham style boring football and cheap ticket prices?

It’s a funny old game eh!!

Top Tickets Prices in the PL:-

Arsenal – £94
Spurs – £71
Chelsea – £60
West Ham – £57
Newcastle – £50
Fulham – £45
Reading – £41
Middlesboro – £40
Blackburn – £39
Bolton – £39
Man Utd – £39
Man City – £38
Everton – £37
Aston Villa – £35
Charlton – £35
Wigan – £35
Watford – £35
Liverpool – £34
Sheffield U – £34
Portsmouth – £30