Daniel Levy has defended Tottenham’s decision to increase ticket prices, explaining that the club had already absorbed a lot of the increasing costs over recent years.
Tottenham announced before the start of the season that match day ticket prices have increased from between £3 and £15 for Category B and Category C games, and between £10 and £17 for Category A games, raising the top price for a single match to an eye-watering £103.
This announcement was understandably met with quite a lot of anger on social media, with some Spurs fans questioning how the club can expect the fans to pay such high prices, given the team’s struggles over the last few years.
The Tottenham Hotspur Supporters’ Trust denounced the decision and there were even protests regarding the same ahead of the club’s first home game of the season against Manchester United (Independent).
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Daniel Levy explains why ticket prices are on the up
Levy has now remarked having kept the ticket prices fixed for four years, the club decided to increase them in order to stay competitive amidst the spiralling costs.
The Spurs chairman said at the Fan Forum held at the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium on Tuesday (via Football.London): “About pricing, ticket pricing is an area I know everyone is sensitive to and so are we. We haven’t put up ticket prices until recently, despite the fact that they’ve been fixed for over four years.
“That’s our general ticket prices. Premium ticket prices have gone up during the period. We’re all facing increased costs, we’ve absorbed as much as we can, but you’re right, if we had other sources of income maybe we wouldn’t have had to do it. But we’re in a highly competitive industry and everything we do is to maximize the income to invest in the team.
“We’ve agreed with the Fan Advisory Board that we’re going to do a long-term strategy paper on ticketing in general. It’s not just about pricing, it’s about access. It will involve away ticketing and may get into things like membership. We’re going to do a complete review and look at how we can improve things.”
When asked how much he thought was too much for a matchday ticket, the 61-year-old said: “We’re all very conscious of the cost of coming to a football game.
“As I said before, we are going to go through a complete review of all of our ticketing policies, but we’re in the real world and the costs of operating a football club have gone up significantly.
“We’re all facing difficult times and we had tried to restrict the increases for fans and we will continue to do that.”
Spurs Web Opinion
Levy seems to be suggesting that the increase in ticket prices might not have happened had we finished in the top four last season and received the additional Champions League revenue. I am not sure that his answer will go down particularly well with a lot of Spurs fans.
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