sport news Why Premier League clubs want to kill off season tickets - is yours at risk? trends now

Towards the end of his reign as Premier League head honcho, Richard Scudamore wore a look of resignation. Sat in a meeting with supporters from across the division, the man who owned enough political savvy to tear up Whitehall privately admitted that his currency had run out.

Rail fares were an issue. Still are, actually. Worse than ever. There were calls for the league to lobby for more flexible ticketing or suggest a subsidy system to their member clubs to mitigate spiralling costs of following a football team. Whether it was reasonable to expect that is somewhat moot, because Scudamore’s answer revealed everything about the culture of boardrooms in our top flight.

‘I’m not going back to the well so soon,’ he told those in the room. Case closed. Scudamore was described as appearing exhausted after a lengthy battle to twist the arms of executives to cap away tickets at £30. He managed it but the energy to go again, with 20 clubs all presenting different needs, problems and varying degrees of obstinance? Even for him, the answer was a resolute no.

That £30 cap is set for a review next year. Some clubs wanted it bumping up to £35 the last time it was renewed, in 2022, but were warned against the PR backlash for the sake of a fiver. It’s one to watch amid a culture war over season ticket prices that has lit a fuse underneath fanbases up and down the land.

Here lies one of the most critical issues in the sport: as the Premier League modernises, Americanises, a depth of feeling festers that those who have contributed to our country’s spectacle and that envied soul are being eased aside. Slowly, but surely.

Perhaps now, at this moment in time – as football races painfully clear of the working man and woman – is when enduring the constant rises, the chipping away at dwindling disposal incomes, stops for the sake of the next generation.

‘You look around the Kop and everybody is 40, 50, 60,’ Spirit of Shankly’s Paul Khan says. ‘There are hardly any kids getting into the game. This is every club, I worry about the future.’

‘The problem is nobody controls or owns this problem,’ one industry insider said. ‘Who can change the policy? An individual club isn’t going out of their way to do it. And the Premier League doesn’t have any interest in trying to change it on behalf of supporters. Clubs won’t think twice about giving their second-choice left winger an extra £15,000 a week for a new contract. Don’t even blink. And then charging fans an extra £15 a ticket to pay for it.’

Look at many Premier League clubs’ plans for next season and fans aren’t happy. Arsenal and Tottenham are not inviting any new OAP season-ticket holders – and are doing away with the idea of discounts for them. Manchester City’s incremental rises – with different percentage increases spread across the Etihad Stadium in a move described as ‘divide and conquer’ – continue. A second mortgage might be handy to watch Fulham from their new stand, at £3,000 the most expensive ticket in Britain. Liverpool are fearing rises in the coming weeks.

Manchester United’s have gone up for the second year running after a long freeze. Chelsea are expecting hikes, Aston Villa the same and also disgruntled by the removal of long-standing fans in the Holte End for hospitality. Brentford’s going up 10 per cent, Burnley even more. The list goes on and on. All condemned and all feeding into an idea one high-profile executive was privately championing over a decade ago.

His club didn’t want season ticket holders. They could fill the stadium of over 40,000 people with those signing up to membership schemes – access to matches sold at a premium. First, with an initial fee to join and then by making bigger mark-ups on tickets for individual matches. ‘Matchday revenue increases 30 per cent overnight that way,’ he said. Another has told staff not to worry about ‘local’ fans in a heartland of their city and focus instead on global reach.

‘The number of season tickets at the Etihad is 36,000 and that is only going to go down,’ a spokesman for City fan group 1894 said. ‘The only way City can beat Arsenal for matchday revenue is if there are no season tickets at all; 60,000 people paying £70 or £80 per ticket per game. That’s what some people at the top of the club want.’

Mail Sport has spoken to representatives of fan groups from each of the current top six and the prevailing feeling is that the increases across the board – termed as inflationary by clubs – epitomise a tax on loyalty. A tax on the duty of being a football fan. Walking away from a season ticket for a year or two is not an option for many: with waiting lists in the thousands, those who give them up may never get the chance to return.

‘You can’t look at match-going fans as a market as you would in any other business,’ Duncan Drasdo of Manchester United Supporters’ Trust says. ‘It’s a monopoly, you haven’t got consumer choice. If you push too hard to maximise ticket revenue you will damage that relationship. I don’t think it makes sense to squeeze that revenue. It creates resentment. Following the Green & Gold protests (against the Glazer family’s ownership) in 2010 we had a prolonged freeze and no doubt a lot of that was down to fan protests.’

The Football Supporters’ Association appear alert to the cause, with sources there talking openly about ‘exploiting fans because of demand is a slap in the face’ and a disparaging outlook on some fan advisory boards, which were implemented recently to improve communication. ‘Some pay lip service and just do what they want anyway,’ a source says. ‘Or tell the board 20 minutes before as a “heads up”. That’s not a heads up, is it? We want the dialogue beforehand.’

One fan who sits on such a board at their club adds: ‘They call it a consultation when actually it’s a fait accompli.’

Listening to the anger this week, demonstrations don’t feel far away. ‘Absolutely,’ Chelsea Trust’s vice-chair Dominic Rosso says. ‘It’s happening everywhere. These are the sort of supporters who are going to be pulling you over the line when you’re up against it. Look at Anfield. While I think everybody can admit wasn’t as loud as it once was, how many extra points does Anfield earn Liverpool a season?

‘Those extra points can be the difference between

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