1 Like
This one was good.
1 Like
Not sure where to put this, but I think the potential lesson here is one for football in general so putting it in this thread
An interesting piece about the fiasco behind the Eintract fans picking up approx 30k Barca tickets for the return leg at the NouCamp last week
In short,
- Barca have a system that allows season ticket holders to notify the club that the ticket is not going to be used so the seat can be sold again, with revenue from that secondary sale shared between season ticket holder and club.
- Barca have over 30,000 season ticket holders this season who took up an option to put their ticket on hold for this year
- The overall cost of supporting barca has to a point that it is potentially freezing out local fans, especially in this secondary market
The result was Frankfurt ended up with as many as 30,000 fans in the stadium on a night when their official allocation was only 5,000 because Barca fans with tickets are not showing up and those without them are not interested in paying the high prices for the tickets that become available. All of this leads to a shocking stat that this season their average home attendance in a stadium that holds 80,000 is just 55,000, and the men’s side have yet to have a sell out. The only time this season that has happened was in the recent women’s Classico.
Yeah, there’s Covid and there is Barca’s uniquely ugly season, but I wonder if there isn’t a bigger lesson there about squeezing a fan base too much. When things are rosy you don’t need the loyal fans to fill the seats. When things are less great and the quality of the product drops, the prawn sandwich brigade wont be there to fill the seats either leaving a massive shortfall in revenue, and a snowballingly worse product. I think the reality is that clubs who realize their home fans are an asset and not a customer base will be better off at maximizing revenue from other sources and sustaining success.
11 Likes
Didn’t something similar happen to City when we played them at the Emptihad? Not sure which competition it was or which year now but there was alot of talk about it at the time. It wasn’t as vast as this but certainly at least 5k more reds in the home stands.
2 Likes
Noticed pockets of red in the blue end on Saturday
1 Like
Also, it’s the greatest thing to happen to Eintracht, or even the entire city of Frankfurt, this century.
2 Likes
There is also the fact that over the last 10 years, a lot of English fans have been priced out of supporting their team here, but find it on par or cheaper to support teams in Europe than lower down the English leagues.
I remember around 2014 or 15 me and a few mates did a trip to Malaga. Return flights from Stansted, 2 nights in apartment on AirBnB, match tickets, beers tapas and a weekend of sunshine cost less than most Premier League tickets
3 Likes
I still cannot get over having to pay near $30 quid to watch Sheffield Wednesday in the third tier of English football back in the early 2000s. I remember probably not more than 10 years earlier using pocket money to go and watch the like of City and Oldham in the top division.
I had to listen to the game on Five Live, they had a few passing words about “Manchester City fans understandably upset” at Liverpool fans celebrating the goal. Maybe it was because I was separated from the events by only listening along but it kind of made me despair for society that we are so precious we can’t even have someone support their own team without getting incensed about it.
I know it’s nothing new, football fans have been separated in the stands for a long time, but for some reason it stuck with me how petty this all is.
5 Likes
1 Like
Yes, to the Lallana goal vs Bordeaux. I was at that game with an Australian I’d met two days earlier in Paris who kept telling me how and why he hated football for the entire game and the ca five hour journey back to the capital. Dunno why he wanted to go to the game, really.
2 Likes
Hate those cunts. In that case, did you suggest he support Everton?
Australians?
Yeah, I agree 
I second this!
Everton’s 1 bid ended in August
What a massive club
4 Likes
Ah that was the season when they crowed for months and then moaned about getting the 4th spot only for them to be knocked out before us as we navigated all the qualifying rounds.
1 Like
Don’t know how I missed this story. I was just thinking about him the other day, wondering what happened to him. Looked a really decent player in the prem a few years ago.
Thankfully, he’s been given the all clear. Hopefully he can get his career back on track!
9 Likes
Was in the crowd then hopefully on his way back.
1 Like