Manchester City have sold out a fresh allocation of over 4,000 Flexi season tickets as they open a scheme for local residents.
Manchester City knew that the jokes would come when they announced £10 tickets for their most local fans. There are thousands of original wits on the internet waiting to make a joke about empty seats.
Making fun of your rivals is part of what makes football so good, but another thing that makes the sport is people being able to go to games and watch them. That is an increasing worry in a business that was built on working-class fans but is now in the hands of sheikhs, hedge funds, and billionaires – and FIFA, let us not forget.
One of the lingering questions around City expanding their stadium again to take the capacity to over 60,000 was how they were going to fill it. That will get easier once everything else around that part of the ground is up and running, but that will take some time.
And yet City are doing just fine actually. It went under the radar given the World Cup and everything else going on in the world, but the club have recently sold out of the new allocation of more than 4,000 Flexi season tickets that have come up in the new Pep Guardiola stand.
There’s a philosophical debate to be had over how authentic the Flexi tickets are, yet the bottom line is that there will now be over 40,000 Blues in the Etihad every week who have a ticket that means they can attend every home game. The fact that half of that number was ringfenced for junior Blues means that the stadium expansion has allowed more of the next generation of City fans to get their foot in the door.
That doesn’t mean that everything at the club is perfect or that they get everything right on tickets, but when there have been concerns at City and elsewhere about families being priced out and season ticket holders being phased out these are clear steps at the Etihad to shut down the worries and reverse the trend.
This has been done at a time when it would have been very easy for City to follow most of their rivals in putting up prices around the ground and making it more and more difficult for their most local and loyal supporters. No wonder there were so many fans of other clubs responding to the new scheme with residents jealous that (Liverpool excepted) their fanbase isn’t offered that.
The offer of £10 tickets for adults who live in five wards surrounding the Etihad will not please everyone, and there are plenty of Mancunians who have stopped going in recent years because the cost or the effort got too much. The scheme, with between 100 and 500 tickets offered every game, will surely help the atmosphere for those rainy, rearranged midweek games in the middle of the season when many regulars decide to swerve a match.
At the same time though, the number of tickets has been deliberately capped at a maximum 500 after negotiations with fan board City Matters because it was felt by those regular supporters that the fanbase should not be more heavily diluted. Given the stadium will be more than two-thirds full with season-ticket holders, that is a healthy base to build on.
Giving away cheap or free tickets can see big clubs laughed at or looked down on, but in a game that is becoming more and more expensive at the top, any attempts to keep prices down should be appreciated. As a football club, you should want people to be excited to come and support the team rather than resent the price or have the expectation of being entertained.
Going to the football is not like going to the theatre or the concerts, and those in charge of setting prices should remember that. City haven’t always, but in recent years have started to listen more to their fans. When supporters voted with their feet on ticket prices, excluding the next generation, season tickets and the detested ticket transfer policy, the club have responded to try to make things better.
You could, of course, argue that it was the club that created the problems in the first place, but in a time when the general direction in football – and the country – has been to ignore the difficulties of people being increasingly unable to afford what they previously could, City deserve credit for listening and acting. Judging by recent sales, making their tickets more affordable has made them more attractive.
By showing local fans that they care about them as a community rather than simply assets, City are earning goodwill and loyalty that can rival cold hard cash for value to a football club. And with the new scheme for local residents inviting more fans, the Blues can chortle along with the jokes around it all the way to the bank as they enjoy the last laugh.
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