Matt Maher hits out at Aston Villa's Champions League ticket 'profiteering'

Express & Star

Matt Maher sat down with Jonny Drury to discuss Aston Villa's Champions League ticket pricing. News of the prices was met with anger this week - as figures revealed the cheapest ticket for a season ticket holder is £70. The most expensive ticket, which is for an adult non season ticket holder is priced at £94. Matt believes Villa have got it wrong and explains why a strong stance is needed against the hefty prices.

Transcript

00:00Matt, news coming out of Aston Villa today, on Wednesday, of Champions League season ticket

00:14prices that have caused quite a stir among the Villa fans. Some hefty ticket prices.

00:22The minimum ticket price for a season ticket holder to get hold of a Champions League ticket

00:26is £70. Some tickets are as high as £94, which are eye-watering ticket prices. What

00:36have you gauged from the reaction so far?

00:45I think that's pretty much it. I think there's a lot of anger. Look, this is a huge moment

00:53for Villa, isn't it? Going back into the Champions League for the first time, back

00:56into the elite European competition for the first time in four decades. I think it's been

01:01soured for many supporters with these prices. We expected them to be expensive, that's the

01:08way things have been going with Villa over the last 18 months. But even I was slightly

01:13taken aback by seeing them. £70 to attend a football match and £94 to attend a football

01:23match. It just smacks. I'm afraid it has been the case now for the last 18 months at least

01:34at Villa, perhaps even two years, is that clearly some of the people running the club

01:39just have no idea what is going on in the real world and the lives that many normal

01:46supporters lead. It's such a shame because the connection between Villa supporters and

01:53their team has never been better than it is now. And yet the disconnect between those

02:02running the off-field operation at the club and the supporters, and I would say the disconnect

02:08with the real world, has never been greater. It's a rip-off. It's an absolute rip-off.

02:20The club would say, well look, we've done a video before just now and we're on PSR,

02:26but they have to try and consider, they need to raise revenues to get within PSR, help

02:32with financial fair play, which has never really washed with me because, look, if you've

02:37got 30,000 season ticket holders and you charge £100 extra each season, that brings you £3

02:45million. It doesn't pay one player's wages. The revenue from ticket prices is pretty minimal

03:06compared to the whole thing. It's pretty low down and it smacks of profiteering, to be

03:13honest. One of the other things they would say is, well it's the first time Villa have

03:20been in the Champions League for 42 years, the European Cup for 42 years, but charging

03:24these prices, which Newcastle last season, who also went back in the Champions League

03:29charged £55, this smacks of, we don't expect to be there next season, this is a one-off,

03:38let's make as much money out of it as we possibly can, which again is probably not

03:45the way to do things.

03:46We've seen down the road earlier in the summer a huge backlash from Wolves fans about season

03:53ticket prices. Do you expect anything to get to that level with Villa fans?

03:55I don't think there's going to be a big backlash. There's a couple of other points. One thing

04:00I would say is that these ticket prices have been announced a week after Villa have had

04:06to promise to launch an investigation into what happened at the first game of the season

04:10where people had to queue up for more than an hour to get into the ground and you had

04:14overflowing toilets, huge congestion on the concourses. It was a shambles, absolute shambles.

04:20And then they announced these ticket prices. So you're paying £94 to potentially have

04:25to queue an hour to get in if they don't get this fixed, this issue they've got with the

04:30ticket being fixed in a few weeks. But you're right, in terms of the protests, I think there

04:34will be. There's going to be a lot of anger. But if there was ever time for fans to stand

04:40up and say, well, we're not having this anymore, it would be now. Because I'll guarantee Villa

04:48would have done this thinking, or Chris Haircliffe, let's name the President of Business Ops,

04:53will have done this, that they'll know what the backlash would have been, but they will

04:56expect people to pay it. And that's what we saw with Wolves, wasn't it? There was a huge

05:00backlash. We wrote about it for a couple of weeks. Okay, there was a bit of a climb

05:05down from the club in terms of the concessionary prices. So there was a small victory for the

05:12supporters there. But there was still a huge take up in season tickets for Wolves. There

05:17was no huge boycott. And this is one of the big issues now is that clubs feel they can

05:23charge these prices because they believe fans will pay them. And more often than not, they

05:28are right. So, you know, look, I do think there'll be anger. I do think, you know, there

05:35will be, you know, there may be protests. But I still expect that Bayern Munich, the

05:40first group game, will sell out. You know, and that is the sad reality because I do think

05:46that, you know, fans are being, you know, ripped off. But I do think that, you know,

05:52at the same time, do fans ever, you know, help themselves? I suppose it's very easy

05:57for me to say that somebody, you know, doesn't pay to get in who goes as an observer. But

06:03looking at it from an entirely dispassionate point of view, I would not pay £70 to watch

06:08a football match. And I appreciate, you know, that those who do. But, you know, for me,

06:15you know, at some point there's got to be a line in the sand, hasn't there? So it's

06:20going to be really interesting to see what happens. But like I say, you know, these extortionate

06:27prices, Villa will be rightly hammered over them in the media. But ultimately, the proof

06:36will be the attendance against Bayern Munich. And if the ground's sold out, then the club

06:42will turn around and say, well, you complained, but you still came.

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