COVER PRICE INCREASE

Dear Soccer Laduma readers, it is with a dampened spirit that I inform you of the cover price increase of your favourite newspaper by 10c, from R3.90 to R4 as from today (Wednesday, April 24). It has always been our mission, at Soccer Laduma, to keep the price of your soccer bible as minimal as possible, while regularly looking to grow and improve our content, which results in an even bigger readership and audience. Having to increase the cover price, no matter how small, always breaks our hearts because it is something we wish we didn’t have to do. Having said that, the costs pressures are the main drivers behind this relatively small price increase of 10c, which is 2.5%. Compared to the industry norm, our price increases have been very few since the inception of this publication, which is something we pride ourselves on. To put things into perspective, with simple maths and the inflation rate of 6%, the cover price of Soccer Laduma, after more than 22 years in the market, should be sitting at around R4, 58c or more. To simplify it even more, the last cover price increase was from R3.70 to R3.90 on 18 April 2018, with the previous increase from R3.50 to R3.70 from 1 July 2015. In essence, we’ve increased the cover price by about 50c in almost four years, which isn’t an easy thing to do at all. Because we care about our readers, we’ve had to make a lot of sacrifices to keep the price as affordable as possible and we hope you, our wonderful readers, will understand the tough economic times we find ourselves in and find comfort in the knowledge that we always try to stretch ourselves as much as possible to keep your paper affordable. Once again, we are sorry we have to increase the cover price and hope you will understand and continue to support us.