ANOTHER Wembley ticket fiasco

[Bry Nylon]

There will be 10'000 empty seats at Wembley for this afternoon's Play-off final - seats that belong to 'Club Wembley' debenture holders who've elected not to take up their tickets for the game.

Wembley / The Football League have not made them available to West Brom or Derby, even though both clubs have sold out their allocations and still have demand for further tickets.

Wembley Stadium - run by morons

 

[Deleted User X18H]

These will be the section of empty seats directly below me yesterday disgraceful

 

[Tom Hark Preston Park]

There will be 10'000 empty seats at Wembley for this afternoon's Play-off final - seats that belong to 'Club Wembley' debenture holders who've elected not to take up their tickets for the game.

STH by any other name then, even if these STH paid 100K for the seats.

Face it, the game as we know it is over. It's all about TV audiences and 50 milllion quid promotions. The game as a whole would quite happily play to a completely empty stadium if they could sell every seat as a Debenture. At that point tho, they'd have to PAY extras to fill the seats and generate some atmosphere.

Don't get mad. Just keep your money for something else. Something more deserving.

 

[Superseagull]

Thats what happens when you sell the 'peoples' game to a load of corperate city w**kers who are only interested in the food, wine, talking business and watching the share prices on the TV's in the coperate boxes whilst the game is being played.

 

[Lord Bracknell]

I suppose if people have paid THOUSANDS for their permanent right to a seat, they could turn up and enjoy the experience of sitting alone, like Nobby No-Mates, surrounded by empty seats and being abused by 60,000 real fans.

I hope that the stewards insist on debenture holders sitting in the correct seat and that anyone found trying a "sit where you like" manoeuvre is BANNED from all stadiums for LIFE.

 

[Tom Hark Preston Park]

There's a severe backlash coming and no mistake. Even the Glazers are looking to sell on Man U cos it's not the cash-cow they thought it was. Nobody really cares anymore. Better to support your tried and trusted LOCAL teams like The Albion and Lewes. It's the same difference as supporting your local brewery or your local cheese-makers (bless 'em!) or something. Let the global brands f*** off and DIE.

 

[Gully]

I came up with an idea this week, of how to deal with the empty debenture seats, as it looks like very few of them have been used for the play-offs. Surely it wouldn't be beyond the ability of whoever runs Wembley to allow those who hold the debentures to let the stadium know in the weeks running up to a game that they will not be using their right to a seat, they could then be sold off in the normal manner thus allowing more people to see important games.

Then an even better idea occurred to me, the fact that the seat has already been paid for would mean that Wembley would be selling it twice, how about putting the extra money in a fund to aid development of the game in England. I suspect that many of the debentures have been sold to people who just want to go to the bigger games, that is to say England Internationals and Cup Finals, most other games will be of little or no interest to them. If I were a debenture holder, incidentally I am not, then I would have no objection to my seat being sold again and the cash going to develop the game I love.

 

[clapham_gull]

They have a "segregation problem" in that area and behind the pitch too.

It's been designed for friendly prawn sandwich chat and not for supporters of teams. So they can't start giving them to clubs until they've sorted that out.

I'm sure things will change now because of the embarresment.

 

[clapham_gull]

HOWEVER, Wembley are insisting that the seats WERE offered to the clubs.

The league wanted 72% of the profits but Wembley refused to go any higher than 50%

http://football.guardian.co.uk/Columnists/Column/0,,2087989,00.html

 

[algie]

They have a "segregation problem" in that area and behind the pitch too.

It's been designed for friendly prawn sandwich chat and not for supporters of teams. So they can't start giving them to clubs until they've sorted that out.

I'm sure things will change now because of the embarresment.

You mean like the Clapham Gulls of this world who think they are watching a snooker match?

Sshhh

 

[dougdeep]

Never mind, the others will get home earlier as there will be less congestion.

 

[clapham_gull]

You mean like the Clapham Gulls of this world who think they are watching a snooker match?

Sshhh

I know you're uncomfortable with balls of different colour.

 

[burrish gull]

Re: Re: ANOTHER Wembley ticket fiasco

STH by any other name then, even if these STH paid 100K for the seats.

Face it, the game as we know it is over. It's all about TV audiences and 50 milllion quid promotions. The game as a whole would quite happily play to a completely empty stadium if they could sell every seat as a Debenture. At that point tho, they'd have to PAY extras to fill the seats and generate some atmosphere.

Don't get mad. Just keep your money for something else. Something more deserving.

Top post mate, thats exactly how I feel. The cricket world cup was a prime example of this, the organisers did'nt give a toss about the atmosphere in the grounds as the money from corporate sponsors was already in the bank.

I agree that footballs over as we knew, I hated it when we were in The Championship with the over inflated prices, the agressive stewarding, the police hatred of football fans in general and the complete lack of atmosphere at most these souless bowls they call football grounds.

The backlash will come eventually and maybe The Albion will benefit from a fairer and more equal future.

 

[seagurn]

Re: Re: Re: ANOTHER Wembley ticket fiasco

Top post mate, thats exactly how I feel. The cricket world cup was a prime example of this, the organisers did'nt give a toss about the atmosphere in the grounds as the money from corporate sponsors was already in the bank.

I agree that footballs over as we knew, I hated it when we were in The Championship with the over inflated prices, the agressive stewarding, the police hatred of football fans in general and the complete lack of atmosphere at most these souless bowls they call football grounds.

The backlash will come eventually and maybe The Albion will benefit from a fairer and more equal future.

With you top comment

 

[Nemesis]

Some good comments on this thread. 10,000 empty seats at what is now billed as "The richest club game in the world" at what is claimed to be the best football stadium in the world is a joke.

 

[clapham_gull]

However - if you a wembley member and you do want to go, the stadium can't do enough

Wembley Stadium will launch an internal inquiry into the confusion that has left hundreds of executive club fans waiting for their FA Cup final tickets with two days to go.

"We our couriering out most remaining tickets today and have given people the option of ticket collection so they are received in good time for the cup final. We are very sorry that this has happened and will be conducting internal inquires to make sure this doesn't happen again to our valued customers."

This is an absolute disgrace. To deprive fans of a play off final into the premiership then rub it in their noses by having 10,000 seats empty is quite possibly the worst case of prawn sandwich eating pigs at the trough I've seen.

 

[Gully]

The crazy thing in the Premiership is that the larger clubs could probably afford to let their supporters in for a fraction of the amount that they currently charge, without much of an effect on their income, most of that coming from sponsorship and TV rights.

 

[clapham_gull]

Press Release From Wembley

Wembley Stadium is delighted to be welcoming the Coca Cola Football League Play-Offs back to Wembley this weekend and expect record attendances.

The clubs taking part have each been allocated over 33,000 tickets for their matches at Wembley Stadium. In addition to this, there has also been a take up from our 15,000 Club Wembley members. However we are not able to release any of the remaining Club Wembley tickets to fans of the competing clubs for crowd safety reasons, as Club Wembley is an unsegregated area.

We have always been concerned about the possibility of having empty seats and so last month we attempted to reach an agreement with The Football League which would have allowed unsold Club Wembley seats to be sold through the clubs. This agreement would have allowed us enough time to work with the local authorities and police to provide segregation to this otherwise unsegregated area.

We were not able to reach an agreement with The Football League however, and unfortunately this means that there will be a number of empty Club Wembley seats at this weekend’s games. The Football League has been fully aware of this situation for some time.

Alex Horne, Managing Director of Wembley Stadium said: “We offered The Football League an equal share in any revenue from the sale of the available Club Wembley seats in order to fill the stadium. It is unfortunate that The Football League was not satisfied with the generous offer as it would have maximised the number of fans that could have attended this weekend’s games.

Wembley Stadium has listened and will continue to listen to feedback from the clubs and from Club Wembley and will take this on board when planning for next years matches.”

-------------------------------

They are blaming the league. It would be interesting to find out exactly how much money they were willing to sell the tickets for.

Wembley stadium is of course a subsidary of the FA.

 

[ditchy]

They are blaming the league. It would be interesting to find out exactly how much money they were willing to sell the tickets for.

Wembley stadium is of course a subsidary of the FA.

Greedy at the FA .. half of all is still all .. At the end of the day it wasnt about crowd segregation , but purely money . .. When was the last time there was any trouble at a play off final ?

 

[Superphil]

I was in Club Wembley seats yesterday, we were able to change ends at half time! The segregation issue is interesting, in the first half we were sat next to Derby fans, with WBA fans in front of us, so they failed in the segregation anyway. It was the same in the 2nd half when we changed ends, no trouble though.

All said and done though, 10K empty seat is a disgrace, furthermore, half the beer/food outlets in the councourse were closed, and the queues were enormous. In the "lahdy dah" section upstairs, they ran out of booze, so sent those people down to the Club concourse bars too.

And, did you see the pathetic "pyrotechnics" at the end, a few hundred soggy paper streamers thrown on top of the players as they posed with the trophy, sad. Where were the fireworks we had at Cardiff? I guess it's probalby London Borough of Brents H&S officers work. The streamers you get to let off on your Grans birthday are more impressive.

This coupled with the music being played so loud (rocking all over the world, again) that you couldn't hear the Derby fans singing at the end, why do they do that? Metallica in July won't make that much noise.

All in all, Wembly and the FA need to raise their game, empty seats, closed facilities, and with the prices they charge for beer and food, they could find that fans are turned off, I can see play-off finals with many more empty seats in the future.

Finally, I didn't remember Wembley being quite the shithole it is, it is a wasteland, we walked all the way round the ground, it's like it's been built on a bombsite. It is a sorry replacement for the Millennium Stadium, right in the centre fo a vibrant city, a CHOICE of pubs and bars everywhere.

Oh well, I guess I'll be there if the Albion ever make it again.