City aim high but WBA gesture is just the ticket

ENGLISH PREMIER LEAGUE:ENGLISH PREMIER League clubs can be accused of many things, but colluding over ticket prices is not one of them.

If research into the cost of going to watch Premier League football next season tells anything, it is that clubs have little regard for what the rest of the division is doing when it comes to working out how much to charge their own supporters.

Greed, though, can come into the equation, as QPR supporters discovered last season when the club’s previous owners hiked season-ticket prices by up to 40 per cent.

Although there is nothing quite as outrageous this year, there remains a huge disparity in prices across the Premier League.

If the 9 per cent rise at Manchester City raises eyebrows, even in light of the club winning the Premier League, then so does West Bromwich Albion’s decision to make sweeping cuts, reducing all adult season tickets by £50 and knocking up to £70 off the cost of seats for youngsters.

It is a noble move, not least because Albion’s 23,622 home allocation was 96 per cent fully subscribed last season, meaning that the club were under little pressure to drop prices.

Nine clubs – Manchester United, Liverpool, Chelsea, Arsenal, Sunderland, Aston Villa, Stoke, Newcastle United and QPR – have frozen the cost of season tickets for the 2012-13 campaign. West Ham have put prices back to the level they were when the club were last in the top flight – 2010-11.

Reading, another of the promoted clubs, have introduced significant hikes for new applicants. But those that renewed during the “early bird” period – operated by many clubs – will be watching Premier League football at the Madejski Stadium at Championship prices.

Norwich City and Swansea City claim that is what many of their supporters were doing last season, given that season-ticket prices for 2011-12 were set when both were Championship clubs and yet to win promotion to the top flight.

Now, however, the cheapest adult tickets at Norwich and Swansea are up more than 10 per cent and, at £471 and £429, are more expensive than the equivalent seats at half the Premier League clubs.

On the face of it there would appear to be little justification for established Premier League clubs to ask their fans to hand over more money in this economic climate, although City may argue that a first championship in 44 years, on the back of Sheikh Mansour’s billion-pound spending spree, is a fair reason for their hike.

Of the other clubs that have been in the Premier League for some time, Fulham have introduced the next highest rise, asking fans to pay an average 5 per cent more to go to Craven Cottage next season.

There are winners and losers at Fulham, where some adults buying the £399 entry-level seats in 2012-13 will be paying £20 less than the previous year while 295 others will be paying 21 per cent more.

Tottenham say their average 3.6 per cent increase is in line with inflation, although those supporters in the cheapest seats could be forgiven for feeling that they have got the rough end of the deal. Entry-level season tickets at White Hart Lane are up from £690 to £730, which is 5.7 per cent more.

Only Arsenal have entry-level seats at a higher price, although those paying £985 at the Emirates Stadium also get seven cup matches thrown in, which works out a marginally better deal than the one at Spurs if calculated on an average cost per game.

If demand way exceeds supply at Tottenham, where there is a 30,000-strong waiting list for season tickets, the same cannot be said for Everton, where gates dropped 7.8 per cent in 2011-12.

Yet, season ticket prices are up an average 3 per cent at Goodison Park for 2012-13.

Guardian Service