English fans pay price as top clubs enjoy boom
LONDON: Season tickets to watch champions Manchester City this season are the cheapest in the Premier League but the eyewatering cost of attending games in England continues to soar.
Despite the money from a record television deal pouring into the top flight of English football, fans are still paying through the nose to support their clubs with ticket prices easily outstripping the rise in the cost of living.
The BBC’S Price of Football report, published on Wednesday, analysed 207 clubs, from season ticket prices to the cost of a halftime meat pie, with the results leading to further calls for a fairer deal for supporters.
According to the report the average cost of the cheapest match-day ticket in the Premier League, the Championship, League One and League Two in now £21.49 (₹2,125) – a rise of 13 percent since 2011 compared to a 6.8 percent rise in the cost of living. While Man City fans, who can still buy a £299 (₹29,500)season ticket, might feel relatively well off, Arsenal’s cheapest offering is a whopping £1,014 (₹1lakh),according to the report.
Tottenham Hotspur’s cheapest season ticket is £765 (₹75,500) with Chelsea third on the list at £750 pounds. The average cost of the cheapest season ticket in the top flight is £508, an 8.7 percent rise since 2012. Chelsea’s ‘bargain’ match-day ticket will leave a £50 dent in the bank account, although Newcastle cheapest match-day seat is only £15.
A report by Deloitte this summer revealed that Premier League clubs were spending 71 pence for every one pound generated on players’ wages the first time it FIFA BANS MONGOLIA BOSS FOR CORRUPTION GENEVA: FIFA on Wednesday banned Mongolian football chief Ganbold Buyannemekh for five years for taking bribes to vote for former Qatari official Mohamed bin Hammam in the world body’s leadership election.
The ban was ordered by the adjudicatory chamber of the FIFA ethics committee, which is currently studying a report into bin Hammam’s possible role in influencing the award of the 2022 World Cup to Qatar, a FIFA statement said.
In a statement, FIFA said the Mongolian would be barred from “any kind of football-related activity at national and international level” during his five years’ of punishment.
Qatar has strongly denied any wrongdoing or any link to bin Hammam’s actions.
POPE TO HAVE AUDIENCE WITH BAYERN MUNICH BERLIN: Bayern Munich players and their Spanish coach Pep Guardiola will have a private audience with Pope Francis next week, the German club announced Wednesday.
The audience will come the day after Bayern’s Champions League match against AS Roma in the Italian capital on Tuesday.
“Before their return to Munich on Wednesday morning, Pep Guardiola and his team will make a detour by the Vatican,” the club said.
Pope Francis, an Argentinian, is a well-known football fan and in August received officials and players from San Lorenzo, the Argentine club which lifted the Libertadores Cup and of whom the pontiff was a