Then there's those who would love to follow their club week in week out, but just can't get a ticket. That's the problem with messing with supply and demand. I guess this only applies to supporters of a handful of clubs...Arsenal, Liverpool and ManU. When the Emirates Stadium was built the locals were offered season tickets, one of the conditions imposed by the council I believe. Sounds reasonable doesn't it? However any locals who really wanted a season ticket already had one or were already on the season ticket waiting list (as were we). So any of the locals who weren't even on the list were pushed ahead of us and weren't really interested in the season ticket but just saw it as a way to cash in. Entry to the new stadium was by smart card. This was difficult for the touts, it meant that they had to go into the ground 'wasting' one of their tickets and stay till half time to retrieve their cards. Great! We thought this would stop touts selling them. Nope. After complaints the club then arranged for some members to get paper tickets again. Clubs don't care where the money comes from as long as it comes in.
Then there's the capped away tickets prices which really messed with supply and demand. What we fans really wanted was for all away tickets to be available at the lowest category price for that ground. If we were a category A match then what we wanted as away fans was tickets for category C prices at that particular ground, whether that be £25 or £50. What happened was more than we were asking for. All away tickets have been priced at £30 for the Premiership for the last few seasons. This has been great for us. However it means that new fans can't get onto the first rung of the away ticket ladder as seasoned fans keep going as it's so cheap (well relative to other things) You need credits to get away tickets. When we started going to matches we could go to the North East and Midlands for 0 credits, so it was easy-ish to build up to the first level of 5 credits and 25 credits was the magic number that could get you any away ticket you wanted. Now it's 15 credits minimum for any away game (except League cup) and you have no hope of ever getting on the ladder. When we were in Baku in October for the group stages we met one lady who had gone there just to get a credit, giving her total of 3 credits (for European matches you have to pick up a slip at the ground to register your credit, so you can't just buy a ticket and not go)
So both these schemes have messed with the economics of supply and demand making it worthwhile for fans who are no longer interested in going to matches themselves to sell their tickets on.
I am going to enjoy the rest from footie until the new season starts. Really not interested in Internationals at all.
