The Price Of Football: Who’s responsible for the financial phasing out of fans? In these modern times of billionaire boards of directors and record-breaking player transfer fees, football has well truly established itself as the largest sport in the world. Over half of the world’s population at the time watched the most recent 2018 World Cup in Russia (3.262 billion), that figure also translates to just under half of the UK’s population actively taking interest and watching the sport regularly throughout the year (46%). This figure is always rising and is a testament to the commercial pull of the beautiful game, it’s the astonishing fact that according to a European Football Benchmark Report released by Statista the same year as the World Cup. It analyses that the British football fan spends £712 a year on football through a combination of watching games on TV, travelling to matches and buying merchandise. So how is it that despite their religious spending habits fans are being made to feel like they’re at the bottom of the financial pyramid? In the most brutally honest of terms, it’s because they are. Nowadays we see that the constantly increasing influx of revenue flowing into the English game has made the fan’s pound less and less significant, especially those who support the largest clubs such as Liverpool, Man City and Chelsea. This year’s F.A cup semi-final between Liverpool and Manchester City has been the most recent knot in a string of spectatorship cost debates with previous examples such as the away ticket price capping rule and the abysmal short-lived £15 pay-per-view match concept. The double northern-sided showdown has resulted in a lot of fans feeling the pinch of a very expensive away day, caused mostly by exorbitant train ticket prices and an inadequate amount of available trains to the south of the country. ‘Price of Football’ Author and sport finance expert, Kieran Maguire described his take on the situation: “there’s an element of poor planning, and the F.A has to take some responsibility here. I also don’t think UEFA and the generally squeezed timetable have helped An increasing amount of the general public will no longer be able to afford these luxuries. “We often say that football is the most important of the unimportant things in life.” declares Maguire, “Some people I think will be starting to pick and choose matches, especially for those clubs that don’t traditionally sell out their season tickets.” He does however believe there’s an outcome to this increase of price that doesn’t affect attendance figures, but it comes at the cost of what many would say helps them enjoy the whole football experience even more: “spending money on football is discretionary, the clubs will struggle to put up prices because there will be resistance from fans. Even if people are going to matches then it might be one pint instead of two, don’t get a pie, don’t get a programme.” The decline in sales of these extra luxuries at grounds could see a larger dent in the fragile finances of lower-league clubs and subsequently the financial stability of the lower-leagues. either because we did have the Euros last summer which extended the season which meant that we started late.” Maguire cited the recent rises in taxes as an explanation to why this situation is more complicated than the usual long-journey away days experienced annually: “We’ve got inflation running at historically high levels for this century, taxes are going up and people have to be careful with what for many is still the people’s game.” Despite the F.A’s admirable attempt to supply 50 free coaches to help fans with unfortunate circumstances the fact remains, any other year this trip will cost either of the club’s supporters at the minimum £150 per person. Top club owners are not currently acquiring the levels of approval from their support that smaller clubs have been. This is due to their tendencies to stay out of the spotlight making occasional shrewd choices at the expense of their fan’s financial and emotional wellbeing (such as the unsuccessful European Super league propositions which were destroyed after two days of brutal backlash dished out by the football community). The supporters are a powerful collective when they need to be and examples of this could be seen in Liverpool’s recent foray into the exploding NFT market, an effort which the accountancy teacher calls “A resounding raspberry from the people of Liverpool.” After more than 90% of the project was unsold. The bloated financial tendencies of those up top are however slowly trickling down into the lower leagues, “The championship remains the biggest challenge not just in English football but European football because the rewards of promotion are so high, it encourages clubs to gamble”. Looking at these unfortunate circumstances for the poorer clubs caught in the great tidal wave of cash flow being pumped through the game seems to inspire a solution from Maguire that involves more scrutiny in the intentions of investors as well as board decision-making: “we need to look at club owners they have had the opportunity in recent years to introduce a set of rules in terms of financial overspending and they’ve consistently failed to do so because each club works on individ- ual self-interest rather than the collective benefit of the game. Club owners have not acted in the interest of English football.” So the unpredictability of this great sport remains ever present. Whether it be on or off of the field there are always new challenges arising for the footballing world to overcome and with the awareness raised of issues such as these we could may see the special return of fan-owner relation- ships at even the highest levels of the game. This issue suggests uneasy futures for football if fan expenditure is not balanced properly with in- vestment intentions. The supporter’s importance in this matter over and after the initial COVID-19 pandemic was according to Maguire, down to the relationship between fan and owner “Those clubs that had good relationships with the fanbas- es were the clubs that benefitted most from fans turning around and saying we don’t want season ticket refunds.” He then spoke of the significance of the fans being able to put a face to the name of their club “custodians”: “Those club owners who see themselves as custodians and guardians of the club, they have a far better relationship with fans and that manifests itself in a sense of family and a sense of belonging. Therefore the fans are more likely to continue to support the clubs and con- tinue to monetise and provide the clubs with both verbal and financial support.”