clippedgull
Hotdogs, extra onions
I wonder if one of our fans will write a letter like this to Ken Brown/Tony Bloom when we get Premiership status?
The TV companies have a lot to answer for, especially SKY.
The TV companies have a lot to answer for, especially SKY.
Dear Ivan
I have read with horror recent reports, including in today’s Daily Mail, that Gold season ticket prices at the Emirates Stadium may well increase next season and that they’ve already gone up for Platinum Club members. As a regular matching going Arsenal fan home and away for more than 43 years, a season ticket holder for thirty years and a shareholder, both personally and via the AST’s Arsenal Fanshare, I’m appalled by the prospect.
I understand that Platinum prices are to be increased by four percent. This is on top of the recent rise in VAT of 2.5%, making a 6.21% increase in total. To me that would represent an increase of £113.38 on top of the £1,825 I already pay, plus the cost of admission for home Carling Cup ties. I simply haven’t got that money. Like many other Arsenal supporters my pay has dropped as I’ve lost a lot of freelance work in the recession.
My bills are going up much faster than the general rate of price increases, particularly my rent and public transport fares, which increased by over eight percent in January following a twenty percent rise the year before. The cost of other essentials like fuel, gas, electricity and food are also going through the roof. My essential costs are going upwards, my income downwards. Next month I’ll take another hit when my employees’ National Insurance Contributions go up, taking more money out of my take home pay.
In terms of value my current seat in block 112 of the East Stand upper tier is substantially inferior for the same cash price I paid at Highbury eight rows from the front of the old East Stand upper tier adjacent to the directors’ box. I’m paying the same for substantially less. I already choose not to run a car, partly as a small and relatively painless contribution to the fight against global climate change, partly because watching Arsenal has become so incredibly expensive.
A close friend of mine who started watching Arsenal as a boy in the late 1960s as I did has three children, the youngest of whom has just started university. He is supporting his middle son in studying for his Master’s degree in international law. He’s an ordinary working bloke like me who loves Arsenal. He works as an administrative officer in a County Court. His wife works part-time in a school as a teaching assistant. He’s facing possible redundancy, increases in his pension contributions and the need to save more for his retirement due to cuts in pension benefits. The club is asking him to choose between his family and Arsenal. Those may appear emotive words but they’re the truth.
The irony is that ticket prices have climbed to their current absurd, rip-off levels at a time when the game is receiving unprecedented injections of cash from broadcasters and sponsors. I’m sure you’ll argue that there are plenty of others on the waiting list who’ll snap up our tickets if we don’t renew. That may be true. I don’t know. I do know that it isn’t my view of the “Arsenal Way” to kick hard-pressed long-standing supporters in the teeth at a time of recession, pay freezes and cuts, redundancies an and rising prices for essentials.
Do we really have to look to Stoke City for an example? They’ve frozen season ticket renewal prices, not even passing on the VAT increase for next season. The board there appears to recognise that supporters are really struggling at the moment. I understand that players and their agents don’t appear to recognise how supporters are under water financially. I really don’t begrudge the players their huge salaries, some of whom earn almost as much in a day as I do in a year. Good luck to them provided they give everything they’ve got to give.
Never mind whether I choose to afford it or not, I simply haven’t got the money. The club won’t offer struggling season ticket holders like me the option to downgrade to Silver membership. Effectively I’m being held to ransom. I’ve been at Arsenal for League matches in crowds as low as 12,000. Now I’m going to be pushed out? I feel bitter at the prospect. Too right I do.
Arsenal has been a central part of my life since I was eleven years old and a mate first took me along in January 1968. I still treasure the memory of that day and so many Arsenal highs and lows since. It cost me two shillings (10p) to get in that day. Football then was truly the people’s game, accessible to those of all means, high and low. No longer I fear.
I hope that even at this late stage you and your Arsenal board colleagues will think long and hard before imposing increases on Gold members. I’m hoping that you will heed the wise counsel of the Arsenal Supporters’ Trust and Arsenal Independent Supporters’ Association on this issue. Ticket prices need to go down, not up. The club should be looking for more and better commercial income and attacking costs, not trying to extract more money from already hard-pressed and loyal fans.
Yours sincerely
Vic Crescit