After approximately 10,000 Liverpool fans walked out of the Premier League clash at Anfield against Sunderland in the 77th minute to protest the proposed ticket prices for the 2016/17 season, the club’s owners have now come out and apologised. In a statement on the club’s official website, they also stated that ticket prices would be frozen and will not be increased to £77 for the new stand as they had planned.
Fans had walked out of Anfield in the 77th minute when Liverpool were leading 2-0 chanting, “You greedy bastards, enough is enough” in unison. It seemed to have an adverse effect as the Black Cats came back into the game in the last 10 minutes and drew 2-2. And yesterday, Jurgen Klopp’s side were dumped out of the FA Cup by West Ham courtesy of an extra-time header.
Liverpool’s Principal Owner John W Henry, Chairman Tom Werner and President Mike Gordon said they “would like to apologise for the distress caused by our ticket pricing plan for the 2016/17 season” and that they were “troubled by the perception” that the board “don’t care about our supporters”.
‘Message received’
Their statement initially defended their logic behind increasing the increase in ticket prices stating that they had “never taken a single penny out of the football club” and that they had invested money in the club, especially the £120m from Fenway Sports Group (FSG) to build the new Main Stand.
However, the three of them spoke about how they met with LFC’s Supporters’ Committee to address various concerns but admitted they got the ticket pricing move wrong.
“A great many of you have objected strongly to the £77 price level of our most expensive GA seats and expressed a clear expectation that the club should forego any increased revenue from raising prices on GA tickets in the current environment.
“Message received.” – Liverpool
Changes to Liverpool’s ticketing structure
The three consulted with the club management and decided to implement a number of changes for next season. One of the main changes was removing game categorisation. Tickets are currently priced depending on the quality of the opposition as top clubs visiting Anfield sees an increase in demand.
They also promised to freeze the highest season ticket price at the current season’s price of £869 while the highest general admission ticket would not go above the current season’s highest price of £59. Furthermore, GA seats at £9 would also be given during EPL matches – a total of 10,000 over the course of a season.
The changes would be in effect for the next two seasons – 2016/17 and 2017/18. The owners wanted to implement this as a sign of their commitment.
More details of the club’s ticket prices for next season can be found on the club’s website.
