Top-flight clubs are flirting with self-destruction by freezing out loyal fans in hunt for tourist dollar

Last september, I was in the German capital to run, walk and stagger my way through the 26 miles of the Berlin Marathon.

I did my research like all good football fans and found, to my delight, that Union Berlin had a Bundesliga home game against Hoffenheim the day before the race. I thought I’d get tickets for me and my mate.

I was excited about going to the game. Union have become a byword for a progressive club that value their fans, where they are not an afterthought, where they are part of the club, where their loyalty is rewarded and cherished and where the atmosphere at the stadion an der alten Forsterei is loud and passionate.

But guess what? there’s a price to pay for being a club like that. For people like me, anyway. the price is that loyal fans, who go to every home game, are respected, rewarded and prioritised by the club and so tourists like me find it hard to pitch up and waltz in.

the 50+1 ownership rule in the Bundesliga — which prevents commercial investors from holding a stake of more than 49 per cent in any club — is not a panacea but it means loyal fans are given the voice and the respect they are denied in England.

I tried to get tickets for Union vs Hoffenheim through the club. No chance. I tried the ticket exchanges. No chance. so I went to watch a game on the Friday night instead, Berliner AK 07 vs Chemnitzer FC in the fourth tier, Regionalliga Nordost.

and when I got over the disappointment of not being able to go to the Union game, I thought about it a bit more and realised that’s what proper clubs do. they prioritise loyal fans over casual visitors, however enthusiastic those visitors may be.

I thought about that experience on sunday when I saw the banner that some Manchester City fans unfurled before their game against arsenal. It was a protest against the fact that even though City are posting record profits, they are charging record prices for season tickets that are disenfranchising loyal fans.

On the tram to the game, there were plenty of Mancunian accents but they were generously complemented by americans and spanish and scandinavian and Japanese supporters. there is something wonderfully eclectic about that kind of mix of cultures coming together to support a team but there is a price to pay.

Most of my friends in Manchester who are City supporters can’t afford to go any more. that has been the case for a while, but now that process of alienation is beginning to accelerate through the fan base.

It is left to fan groups such as 1894, in City’s case, to give the fans’ grievances a voice. ‘Record Profits. Record Prices,’ a message on their X account says. ‘to hell with the legacy fans who carried the club and concentrate on the global fan base and charge stupid amounts for matchday prices and packages. the price of everything and the value of nothing.’

this is not just about City. this is about tottenham and Liverpool and Fulham and Manchester United and many, many clubs in the English top flight. and in this case, in the Premier League, the price is paid by loyal, local fans.

that is the choice the top tier of English football has made. they have, to no one’s great surprise, chosen to prioritise making a fast buck rather than respecting their traditional fan bases.

they have chosen to eradicate and erase loyal fans. they have chosen to freeze them out and they are not even bothering to be subtle about it. they are taking the financial mismanagement of their clubs and their craven obeisance to player wages and passing the cost on to the people who can least afford it.

I understand the argument made by, among others, ange Postecoglou that going to a Premier League match should be open to all and that it is wrong to discriminate against fans just because they live on the other side of the world. It is usually hard to find fault with anything the spurs manager says but, in this case, I can’t agree with him.

I suppose it comes down to a person’s view of the English game. Mine is that all our clubs should be inextricably linked with their communities. Fans whose families have supported them for generations, fans who go to the games every week, fans who will not fall away when a player leaves, fans who have a visceral feel for what a club means to its town or city, should be prioritised, not marginalised.

this argument is about what we want our game to be. Do we want it to be a vehicle for corporate greed, somewhere you take a client to entertain them on a saturday afternoon? Do we want it to be an international product, rather than a spectacle for English tribalism? Do we want our clubs owned by nation states? Do we want to disenfranchise traditional fans? the answers, in the Premier League, are clear: yes, yes, yes and yes.

Loyal fans are an afterthought. all that matters is how much a ‘customer’ spends. all that matters is how much money a club can wring out of a ticket price. and if season tickets are deemed economically inefficient, they will phase them out.

they will phase out loyal fans. they are doing it now, in front of our eyes. they are being driven out. I know it, you know it and Premier League clubs know it. that is why there are protests at ground after ground and that is why the protests will grow in the weeks and months ahead.

More and more, I am starting to hear the argument that it is wrong to consider the Premier League as English football. Because there are more foreign owners than English owners, because the league’s main influences are american and Middle Eastern, it belongs to the world now. that is how that argument goes.

It is the same argument that says our clubs, deracinated and transplanted and corporatised and homogenised, should play league games abroad and stage the Fa Cup final in Dallas. It is the same argument that denies that the Premier League is part of a wider eco- system that is dependent on the lower leagues.

the reality, though, is that the Premier League are flirting with self-destruction. their clubs are killing the goose that laid the golden egg. their owners don’t realise that if they kill the character of clubs by banishing loyal fans, they will kill the league too.

People watch the Premier League for the sublime players and for Pep Guardiola and Jurgen Klopp and Roberto De Zerbi but they also watch for the intensity of the atmosphere and the passion of the fans. that is the league’s unique selling point. the corporates don’t provide that. tourists don’t provide that.

I don’t know if Premier League chief executive Richard Masters or any of the owners have noticed but our stadiums are getting quieter. Month by month, season by season, they are draining our grounds of their lifeblood.

they won’t know what they’ve got ’till it’s gone. Until then, the greed of the Premier League clubs is hastening them along the path to their own decline.