PSG ticket prices - Protest options v West Brom.

[Prestwich_Blue]

it sounds like you think you owe the club something ? we have great owners and thing have been great, but it doesnt mean we should be ripped off and fans being priced out. we dont owe the club anything we are the club.

' incredibly grateful' ? alright then ill just bend over backwards accept anything the club do and watch from home because I've been priced out. sounds great. I forgot we aren't playing macclesfield and must charge what other top teams charge..

I don't get this line either. We owe the club or its owners nothing. Nicht. Nada. Zilch. We go because we're fans, we want to and we can afford it. It's never been an issue for most of us who the owners are or had an impact on our support. Some stopped going under Thaksin for ethical reasons and plenty protested against Swales but most of us carried on going regardless. Naturally we're extremely grateful for what the Sheikh has done. Not many know better than me the dire state we were in a few weeks prior to the takeover. But I owe him nothing. I've stayed loyal, paid for my tickets and bought other stuff. He doesn't personally owe me anything of course but he owes something to the club and that's to keep it rooted in its community.

He made it clear in his open letter that he would try to do that, be sympathetic to the fans but that he'd bought the club as a business. I heartily agree with that approach and you'll never find that I've said otherwise but there's a bit more to football clubs than just pure business. You can fill a ground with people who will pay premium prices but simply don't understand where the club has come from, don't know the songs and don't know what (we believe) support & passion is. That might be good business in the strictest sense of the word but that isn't fulfilling his stated commitment to us. I don't blame him for that but his CEO and his executive team, which is largely why I'm no great fan of Soriano.

 

[Prestwich_Blue]

But you are undercutting your last post. If you can charge more for a CL final why can't you charge more for a quarterfinal. As you said...same hard seat, same pie etc...

I understand your logic but the obvious retort is that a final is out of our control as we don't set the prices and don't have to worry about filling the stadium. We'd only have to sell 20,000 tickets in someone else's stadium. It's a big, prestigious global occasion and demand will be high. For the semi or quarters, it's in our stadium and we have 50,000 tickets to sell. We have to balance demand and price against the benefits of a full stadium, great atmosphere and the impact that will have on the team.

But to give you a straight answer, if I think that £70/80 is OK for a final, then I'd expect £50/60 for a semi-final and maybe £35/40 for a quarter final. I've already said that I thought the Kiev price structure was more appropriate for this game and the one for this game would have been more appropriate for the semi-final. To be honest, whatever the competition, it doesn't really get interesting until the semi's which is why I think the club has misjudged this.

 

[Paul_Powers_Tash]

it sounds like you think you owe the club something ? we have great owners and thing have been great, but it doesnt mean we should be ripped off and fans being priced out. we dont owe the club anything we are the club.

' incredibly grateful' ? alright then ill just bend over backwards accept anything the club do and watch from home because I've been priced out. sounds great. I forgot we aren't playing macclesfield and must charge what other top teams charge..

Maybe you have to sit through year after year of utter dross like I and many others here have in order to fully appreciate that David Silva, Yaya Toure and Sergio Aguero now play for us. I don't feel like I owe the club anything but I am grateful for the difference our new owners have made compared with previous owners.

To suggest that our club is ripping us off is ridiculous in comparative terms. It's the quarter final of the Champions League not the second round of the carling cup, but incredibly people here think it's wrong that they are charged more.

Ultimately this is now Sheikh Mansour's club. He bought it, he owns it, it is his. It is also his money that has brought us previously unknown success. We can't have it both ways although people here think they can. We can choose to follow and support the club, but we don't own the club, we never have. I followed and supported the club when Peter Swales was the chairman and a group of people owned the club, we didn't own it then either.

To suggest that fans demonstrate or protest against our club after the journey we have been on over the last few years is small minded in the extreme.

 

[Paul_Powers_Tash]

Not only is it spineless, he's wrong in the sense that fans of other clubs have already taken up the baton on this which shows how out of touch he is.

I'm neither spineless or out of touch. The press would have a field day if we were involved in this. The smart thing to do is to let fans of other clubs fire the bullets.

 

[moomba]

I'm neither spineless or out of touch. The press would have a field day if we were involved in this. The smart thing to do is to let fans of other clubs fire the bullets.

That sounds pretty spineless to me.

 

[crmcfc]

Have you got any figures at hand to prove that most who are complaining don't go?
As you're still going my line about long term blues being priced out doesn't refer to you does it.

Its just my gut feeling that's all,from reading some comments on here and the large numbers that seem to prefer to watch it in the pub (on the dodgy channels) yet know everything about city.

£40 for a one off match is not pricing any longer term blues out, if we turn round and charge £1000 for a season ticket next season then I'd agree there is a problem.

 

[Paul_Powers_Tash]

That sounds pretty spineless to me.

Unfortunately not everyone is going to understand.

 

[Prestwich_Blue]

I'm neither spineless or out of touch. The press would have a field day if we were involved in this. The smart thing to do is to let fans of other clubs fire the bullets.

Imagine Churchill in 1940

"We won't fight on the beaches, no way will we fight on the landing grounds, we definitely won't fight in the fields and in the streets, And you'd better not fight in the hills;. We're going to leave it to the Yanks as we don't want to upset anyone or get a bad write up in the Daily Mail".

 

[Beyond Belief]

Whabbi? Interesting choice of words. So for you this is partially your own bias against our owner's background.

What is biased about the sheikh being part of the Wahhabist gulf monarchs? Why subvert the discussion away from your clear indifference to many genuine City fans being priced out of following their team?

 

[Cheadle_hulmeBlue]

Maybe you have to sit through year after year of utter dross like I and many others here have in order to fully appreciate that David Silva, Yaya Toure and Sergio Aguero now play for us. I don't feel like I owe the club anything but I am grateful for the difference our new owners have made compared with previous owners.

To suggest that our club is ripping us off is ridiculous in comparative terms. It's the quarter final of the Champions League not the second round of the carling cup, but incredibly people here think it's wrong that they are charged more.

Ultimately this is now Sheikh Mansour's club. He bought it, he owns it, it is his. It is also his money that has brought us previously unknown success. We can't have it both ways although people here think they can. We can choose to follow and support the club, but we don't own the club, we never have. I followed and supported the club when Peter Swales was the chairman and a group of people owned the club, we didn't own it then either.

To suggest that fans demonstrate or protest against our club after the journey we have been on over the last few years is small minded in the extreme.

i do appreciate what the owner has done for us. the fact is we can have it both ways we can have cheaper tickets and a successful team, why can't you have both. with all the things pointed out , tv deal, money from rounds .... we clearly can.

it is our club yes the owner owns it, but without us thre wouldn't be a club, i think you underestimate the importance and power fans hold, if we stopped going and protested the club would have to listen. its not small minded to think of our fan base, its about keeping our identity and keeping the core support that makes city what it is. you can't honestly want fans to be priced out or the ground filled with tourists. i sat through years of dross but at least i could afford it, same with the aguerooo moment, if prices had been higher you or me might not have been able to see that. all the iconic things city fans have been part of, the poznan, amazing atmospheres, bananas none of that would have happened with a different fan base imo

ultimately its about being able to see the club i support. manchester is not a wealthy city - if your pricing out the very community you claim to represent then whats the point in us being manchester city.