Dean Young, Liverpool Socialist Party and Liverpool supporter
Liverpool Football Club, with a revenue of over half a billion pounds annually, has announced that for the next season it will increase ticket prices by 2%. This is part of a plan to gradually increase prices by 10.5% across a five-year period. The ownership group, FSG, is attempting to increase pricing to a previously desired target of £77 per ticket by stealth, 2% at a time.
This was correctly met with widespread disapproval, with the supporters’ groups Spirit of Shankly (SOS) and the Spion Kop – which organises flags during the game – opposing all ticket increases. Any talk of price increases is ludicrous, prices are already extortionate and price out working-class supporters in favour of the more-affluent tourists willing to spend £1,500 on a hospitality package (with prawn sandwiches included!).
However, SOS, despite their good intentions in opposing price increases, must self-reflect. It was offered, following the club’s mad decision to support the ‘Super League’ proposals in 2021, a non-voting seat on the board of directors. This was to “represent fans views”.
But the capitalists who own Liverpool used SOS as a controlled opposition and in doing so neutered more radical demands, such as replicating the 50+1 majority fan ownership model of the German football pyramid.
Now, after a recent meeting between SOS and the club following the decision to not have any flags on the Kop for the Europa League game vs Atalanta, the price rises have been cemented. And that is apparently that, but it shouldn’t be. What football fans need is to reclaim our game. Football represents communities, pricing out the people living in Liverpool or any other city seeks to destroy the remaining working-class links to the sport. No to ticket price rises, yes to ‘twenty is plenty’ as a motto for ticket prices!
