Post by QPR Report on Jan 21, 2009 15:44:53 GMT
"Dear football, we love each other so don’t make me divorce you"
Garry Andrews/SoccerLens
[Full article at soccerlens.com/dear-football-we-love-each-other-so-dont-make-me-divorce-you/20849/
(Does make brief reference to QPR!)
Excerpt:
To our loyal customers… sorry fans
While we’re on the topic of money and fans, now seems to be an appropriate time to bring in the whole matchday experience and the cost of supporting a club. When Roy Keane launched into his prawn sandwich rant, it struck an easily identifiable chord. Today, it seems those prawns have grown even bigger.
Since the start of the Premier League, watching a football game has changed. No surprise in some respects - every sport evolves, and this is only to be expected, encouraged even. But not when this change involves paying an extortionate amount of money to watch a lifeless game in a soulless identikit stadium.
Back in 1990, The Taylor Report concluded that “it should be possible for seating to be £6″. Allowing for inflation, today you should be paying around £10. Today, £30 is a reasonably cheap ticket for a Premier League game, as ticket prices have risen by about 500% in 18 years. At £94, Arsenal have the dubious distinction of offering the most expensive seats in the Premier League.
But, if anything, prices are just as bad if not worse in the lower league. Take Gillingham from League Two, for example, where your average non-concessions supporter can expect to pay between £19 and £25, which is roughly the same as it’ll cost you to watch Hull City in the Premier League.
Dropping down into Conference territory, a seat at Stevenage will set you back £15, terraces £12, while Oxford charge between £11 and £19.50 and, one league below that, St. Albans City charge £10 to sit and £12 to stand. As a comparison, Bayern Munich charge £13.50 to stand for Category A games.
I’ve nothing against the clubs listed above, they’ve been picked at random. But it’s still an example of how costs of football have risen dramatically in recent years (and this is before we take into account travel, food, programmes and other matchday expenses).
And none of them are as bad as QPR, who brazenly raised their prices to £50 for a Category A Championship game earlier this season, and £40 for travelling supporters, while season tickets at Loftus Road for 2008/09 rose by nearly 50%..."
Full article at soccerlens.com/dear-football-we-love-each-other-so-dont-make-me-divorce-you/20849/