There is no excuse for the ridiculous Champions League ticket prices at Aston Villa and if anyone mentions PSR again we’re going to scream.
Imagine the excitement over the summer as Aston Villa fans discussed midweek plans to watch their beloved team play in Europe’s showcase competition for the first time in 41 years. Now imagine the deflation of being told by their club that they’ll have to pay roughly £1 a minute for the privilege.
Unai Emery’s side will host Bayern Munich, Bologna, Juventus and Celtic at Villa Park over the next five months and the club announced on Wednesday that adult tickets for those four home games in the new 36-team league format will be priced at £85, £94 and £97. Season ticket-holders have been offered discounted rates of £70, £79 and £82.
Having met with the club towards the end of last season, Aston Villa Supporters’ Trust (AVST) “made clear pricing should be no higher than that of a Category A game” in the Premier League, with prices for those fixtures ranging from £55 to £92. Their request was met with depressing, almost laughable disregard.
The equivalent of that £55 ticket for a Champions League home game at Villa Park for an adult without a season ticket and any concession will be £85 – an increase of 55%.
“For the club to announce Champions League ticket prices well above this season’s category A is extremely disappointing,” AVST said, while the Football Supporters’ Association called Villa’s ticket prices “truly eye-watering”.
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Their place in the Champions League this season should, if anything, lead to a ticket price reduction.
Villa get £16m straight off the bat for qualifying, they’ll get £1.8m per group stage win and £600k for a draw, and assuming they finish around mid-table, they’ll earn a further £5m through ‘shares’ of the giant pot split according to results. Teams get roughly £10m for reaching the last 16 and so on and so on. You get the picture; it’s a money-spinner.
The club earned roughly £940k per home game in their most recently published accounts, for the 2022-2023 season. Sell-out crowds for the Champions League games will see them earn them more than double that amount.
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The assumption is that Villa have hiked prices in order to comply with Profit and Sustainability Rules (PSR), which may not be fit for purpose, may be penalising ambitious clubs like Aston Villa, but let’s be absolutely clear, are not an excuse for putting additional costs on the fans.
The PSR Made Me Do It claim that’s being made by clubs is complete nonsense. They have highly paid accountants in charge of the numbers who know the rules, know what they can and can’t spend and when the books need to be balanced. Failure to do so is a clear sign of their negligence. Fans being punished for their dereliction of duty or vain attempts to swerve the regulations is deplorable.
Liverpool’s adult home ticket for Champions League games this season range from £30 to £61, Manchester City’s from £37.50 to £62,50 and while Arsenal’s are steep at between £74.30 to £106.80, their concession comes through home European fixtures being included in their season-ticket price.
Perhaps the most depressing thing about all of this is that it will work. Some Villa fans may not be able to go, but most will scrimp and save to get there because football fans are loyal beasts and the fear of missing out after four decades will be too much to bare.
The stadium will be full, the club will get their money from the fans-cum-consumers and what will happen then? They’ll think these chumps will pay anything.
