While UEFA are waffling on and dragging out the draw, I've got time to respond. Some of what I'm going to say reflects the club's view and some (probably the majority) my own personal view.
As I said, it was the club's initiative to end points for buying away tickets and there's a theme here, which I'll touch on later. The club have been coy about how they monitor these things but they do, and they reckoned that 25-30% of the tickets for away games were being used by someone other than the person who bought them. A large part of that was due to the points system, which rewarded buying tickets rather than using them, and also generated a fear of falling behind from those high up on the ladder.
People complaining about having decent points totals and not being able to get tickets were being screwed by this system. There was no way anyone could legitimately catch up. We readily agreed to end the system of giving away points and to introduce a limited system of collecting tickets at the venue. We know from the process the club put in place for CL games (which was nothing to do with CM) that collection had a significant impact on the level at which tickets sold out. So there was clearly a lot of tickets being passed on. Unfortunately the club fucked it up, particularly v Celtic, but it worked. Digital tickets for away games may be the answer, as movement of these can be easily tracked. Just to be clear, there's always going to be circumstances where people need to get rid of tickets they can't use for various reasons - illness, work, family issues, etc. We've been emphasising to the club that the mechanism for doing this has to be as easy as handing your card over, but without the risk that you might not see the card again!
As for the distribution of available tickets, if I was implementing a new system, I certainly wouldn't use the one we currently have. However, I don't accept that tickets should only go to general admission season card holders, based on loyalty points. That just creates a closed shop.
The OSC allocation is a hangover from the days where (a) we weren't as good as we are now and (b) it was easier to distribute 50 tickets to a branch and get the money for those, in the days prior to the internet. I don't personally have a problem with the OSC allocation as it enables fans who might not have the points, including overseas fans, to get to occasional away games. People are talking about a limited allocation going into a ballot and the OSC allocation performs a similar function. If I was putting in place a new system, I'd probably keep an OSC allocation of some sort.
I know there's lot of criticism of the Hospitality allocation but these are usually for season card holders who may be just as loyal as other, general admission, season card holders. I know quite a few in hospitality who have been watching us regularly for many years. It's not just faceless corporates. In that new system I'd implement, I'd also look at extending any points system to Hospitality season card holders where possible. It's more problematic where seasonal hospitality customers are companies rather than individuals but not insoluble.
Another thing I'd do if I was introducing a new system is just allocate points on a rolling basis, rather than lifetime, say 5 years maximum. All the other top clubs, bar united, do this. We've talked the club about this and looked a little at the impact that would have on the top points holders. Personally, I'd achieve tis by taking out the earliest 4 or 5 years of points every year for the next 4 or 5 years, until we're down to only the last 5 years which we can then do on a proper rolling basis. That would help people catching up but I'd never want to disadvantage those fans who do go to all or 90% of games.
I think it's wrong to talk about points equalling 'loyalty'. Obviously they reflect attendance over the years to a large degree but my view is that why should someone who might have been a regular for 15 years, then maybe stopped going to most away games, be higher on the ladder than someone who has gone regularly more recently? Or why should someone who's paid £50 for Platinum be classed as more 'loyal' than someone who's been to the same games but not paid that extra? I stopped Platinum when my lad moved to the USA, as a protest against increasing prices and I was working away from home a lot, but I worked out I'd have around 22k points now if I'd carried it on. That wouldn't make me any more loyal though (although I'd have got to more games than I have on Gold).
What we have been talking to the club about is giving points for attendance, including at home games, rather than simply for buying a ticket, then not using it. That would make sure that the people who did turn up on a cold, wet Wednesday night for games against relegation fodder, or early round cup games against lower league opposition, were the ones rewarded. I know that would impact the people who can't make the midweek games because of distance but there should also be incentives for putting your ticket on the exchange, or passing it on to another person. That way, we should minimise the problem of tickets being sold but large numbers of empty seats.
And finally, to answer the points about obvious tourists at away games, you don't know where they've got their tickets from. It might be from the club allocation, an overseas OSC branch, or via a ticket that someone entitled to it has sold to them or a third-party resale site. If you do see people like that, either ask them or pass on their seat numbers to my successor so they can have it investigated. Or you could just accept that a few tickets will inevitably slip through the net.
