Fans, Tickets and Profit
Football fans have had much to cheer and despair about in the last seven days, always a sign of a good news week. From Rooney’s overhead wallop to Arsenal and Tottenham upsetting the odds to a football journalist conducting a publicity campaign by pretending to stand for FIFA presidency, it’s been a fun week.
And there are the downsides – although you can’t begrudge football fans their God-given right to have a whinge – the biggest of them being the announcement yesterday from Uefa on the 2011 Champions League ticket prices.
If you haven’t heard – the tickets prices are £300, £225 and £150 (depending on which category you choose), plus a £26 administration fee for each two-ticket booking. Compare this to UEFA women’s Champions League final at Fulham’s Craven Cottage on May 26 – where tickets cost just £5, or the ticket prices from Rome two years ago, where the lowest category ticket was £80 – and you can understand why the football fans are moaning in unison.
But here’s the question for you – why are football fans so annoyed with players and football clubs (and football associations) trying to maximise their income? It’s part of a wider social phenomenon, where those who earn substantially more than us get chided for wanted to improve.
Is it because it’s at our expense (partially through higher ticket prices, merchandising, matchday hospitality, Sky, etc)? In that case I refer you to this excellent article in the Guardian that neatly explains why that is.
Is it because you think people who have more than you should not grow, and should be satisfied with what they have? How do you think they are successful in the first place? By working hard (mostly) and taking advantage of the opportunities that came their way (always). Not everyone will get the same opportunities (too many variables involved), but it’s what you do with what you get that determines everything. Coupled with the above article’s point on everything being a factor of demand and supply, we reach a point where we want more from the game, but we’re angry at the costs.
We can’t have it both ways. Unfortunately there’s a price to be paid for success, or as TSF says, for our lofty ambitions. And whether it’s buying the Madrid-Barcelona tickets through TixDaq because you desperately want to see Mourinho get his revenge, or whether it’s buying the new Wilshere Arsenal shirt, because he’s the next Xavi, consider this (and I’ll let TSF finish this article):
Ask yourself what really makes you happy? Because those of you who want the very best talent that enables your team to compete and win trophies will know that somebody has to pay for it, and those same people will also understand that if it all ends in tears, it isn’t necessarily the players that need shooting because, for the most part, we’re just playing our role in somebody else’s grand design. Those who don’t understand that argument, take your card out of the machine and take the kids to the park. Either way, the real power still belongs to you.
