Away Fan$
You can’t possibly justify the cost of attending an A-League game, especially when watching the lack of quality over the last few weeks. On Wednesday night we saw the Socceroos scrape through to a fourth consecutive FIFA World Cup to keep football relevant on the congested Australian sporting landscape. The FFA need to engage with the 77,000 capacity crowd who attended the event and the hundreds of thousands who watched the game as our nation held its collective breath.
Within a week of qualifying for the World Cup the A-League has managed to take the positive attention off the sport and replace it with over priced tickets, empty stadia and if you can actually believe it, a stadium not fit to host a scheduled professional sporting event.
Clubs don’t own their own stadium and won’t for a very long time in the current climate so even though it’s extremely frustrating that Spotless Stadium has seemed to snub the Wanderers needs for a music event it seems out of our control, let’s focus on something we can control; ticket prices.
Over social media over the last few weeks it has become all too apparent that away fans are paying far too much for tickets. It would be a safe assumption that most fans who travel to watch their team would be club members but when they choose to attend as an away fan they are for intensive purposes a captive audience. Fans who have payed a decent amount of money in travel and accommodation are not going to baulk at exuberant ticket prices, no matter how much they disagree with being gorged at the ticket office by an opposition club.
Away fans create a fantastic atmosphere and are a much needed part of our game; these fans should be duly rewarded for following our game and dedicating many weekends for their team.
Ticket prices for away fans need to be capped for A-League members with normal games attracting a $20 price tag and any premium or derby fixture costing $25. This would ensure away bays continue to attract a good amount of fans, and games are played with an atmosphere worthy for out top domestic competition.
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