The battle now raging

[steamer]

You are right to say, they are the reason we are playing B.Munich and Juventus
If we want to carry on playing them we have to match them financially, I agree that fleecing the fans should not be the first option.
Does anyone have a table showing the prices different teams in the competition charge ?

[Paul.S]

Excellent summary of how I feel and I suspect of how many other people feel.
What a shame, it was going so very well and now this. Modern football has found its way into our club and the way we’ve been treated stinks.

[VillaTim]

Free market forces decide how football has gone in this country. In financial terms the model works and will continue to work offering ever greater returns for those that own the assets.
If we want something more like the German model with accessible prices for most it requires intervention. That would probably have to be at government level which is unlikely to happen.
It would then still be a very long process. Stadiums being redesigned with substantial areas of safe standing as overseas owners drifted away.

The financial model doesn't work though does it . Most clubs lose tens of millions if not more every year . Yet the CEO's take home 7 figure salaries and bonuses . No other industry works on this model . Feels like a massive money laundering operation.

[Pat Mustard]

It's difficult to understand what thought-process has taken place behind anything that's gone on recently.  It seems to me that there is a fundamental failure to understand what Aston Villa is and who our supporters are at the decision making level, and for a number of reasons.

The farce of the Arsenal game didn't happen in isolation.  We had been to the ground a couple of days earlier to pick up a shirt for our daughter, and it was obvious the ground was nowhere near ready - who had oversight of this?  Why is Chris Heck recording another puff-piece boasting about the changes (including specififally referring to LEDs that clearly hadn't been installed yet), instead of having teams make sure the ground was in at least a workable state.  Another ridiculous example was that the first confirmation that the fanzone wasn't going to be operating against Arsenal came from the social media accounts the band that had been booked to play there - nothing from the club until less than 24 hours before the game.

The treatment of staff at the club since he arrived has, from the outside at least, looked appalling.  Men and women who have worked at the club for years have been discarded - people who know and understand the club. It's no surprise then that you have a largely de-motivated workforce across the whole place, and the lack of urgency in getting the ground up and running for the Arsenal game is almost inevitable.

Then the pricing - I cannot understand how they are getting this so wrong.  Where is Heck getting his data that the current prices are in any way sustainable?  I've said this before, but we are relatively fortunate in that we are working in good jobs and are only taking one child to a game, yet we are having to cut back massively on attending this year.  In and around Birmingham, if we as a family can no longer afford to go to games I am really struggling to understand where our replacements are coming from.  Yes, no doubt we will sell out 50% of matches against bigger opponents, in the CL etc, and will probably make decent money on the GA+ for those games.  There are a lot of other matches, however, that I am convinced will have thousands of empty seats, and if regular seats are empty I really can't see who is going to pay GA+ prices of £250 to sit in the lower North with a couple of drinks thrown in.

Villa are not Manchester Utd or Liverpool with 10s of thousands of tourists coming every week.  We are not Spurs or Arsenal with a potential audience of 10 million people on our doorstep based in one of the most expensive cities in the world.  There is an extent in which we have to accept that it is a long process to get to the levels of revenue they achieve.  Instead of this we are risking breaking the bonds with our most loyal supporters, so when new fans turn up for their day-trip they are going to find a potentially toxic atmosphere, lots of empty seats and in a ground that is still not fit for purpose.  And all of this on the back of the best team we have had in 30 years - it's madness and I cannot believe anyone will be thinking in 12 months time that Chris Heck has done a remotely good job.

[Villan82]

Quality post Pat Mustard, bravo.

He does not understand Aston Villa. The plastic market is cornered with Liverpool and Man Utd. The chic Tarquin market is cornered by Arsenal and Chelsea in Landan.

We are Villa, a big club with a big reach and the potential for more. Critically, we are different.

I also predict, on top of this, that this absolute clown Chris Heck will use reduced demand to justify the cancelled expansion/development. In a rant earlier this year I may even have predicted this!

We were on the cusp of being the club we should have been in the late 90s- successful on the pitch and playing in front of 50,000 passionate fans screaming their heads off. But as usual a fool in a suit came along at the wrong time and made a balls of it

[ian c.]

You are right to say, they are the reason we are playing B.Munich and Juventus
If we want to carry on playing them we have to match them financially, I agree that fleecing the fans should not be the first option.
Does anyone have a table showing the prices different teams in the competition charge ?

I just checked Bayern's pricing. For UCL category A games standing is 19 EUR, seats range from 60 to 120 EUR (everything behind goals is 70 or less.)  Disabled people can get in for less than parking their car at Villa Park (5 EUR which includes entry for a person accompanying anyone in a wheelchair.)

[Clive W]

Having supported us through thick and (mainly) thin times for nearly 70 years, the one thing that I clung to was the fact that  Villa, unlike most clubs, had class and I was never embarrassed about admitting to be a supporter.

Now, I fear, we are becoming like the very teams that we have despised over the years

[chrisw1]

Villa are not Manchester Utd or Liverpool with 10s of thousands of tourists coming every week.  We are not Spurs or Arsenal with a potential audience of 10 million people on our doorstep based in one of the most expensive cities in the world.  There is an extent in which we have to accept that it is a long process to get to the levels of revenue they achieve.  Instead of this we are risking breaking the bonds with our most loyal supporters, so when new fans turn up for their day-trip they are going to find a potentially toxic atmosphere, lots of empty seats and in a ground that is still not fit for purpose.  And all of this on the back of the best team we have had in 30 years - it's madness and I cannot believe anyone will be thinking in 12 months time that Chris Heck has done a remotely good job.

Whilst I agree with your overall sentiment and think the prices are far too high, the reality is we will sell out at least 3 of the games probably all four.  And whilst the ticket sales will have only played a small part, if next summer our turnover has increased massively and we do not need to sell Jacob Ramsey or Jhon Duran at a cut price before the end of June, or if we manage to sign some excellent top draw additions to the squad, I don't think the general sentiment will be that Heck hasn't done a remotely good job.

[frank]

It's difficult to understand what thought-process has taken place behind anything that's gone on recently.  It seems to me that there is a fundamental failure to understand what Aston Villa is and who our supporters are at the decision making level, and for a number of reasons.

Then the pricing - I cannot understand how they are getting this so wrong.  Where is Heck getting his data that the current prices are in any way sustainable?  I've said this before, but we are relatively fortunate in that we are working in good jobs and are only taking one child to a game, yet we are having to cut back massively on attending this year.  In and around Birmingham, if we as a family can no longer afford to go to games I am really struggling to understand where our replacements are coming from.  Yes, no doubt we will sell out 50% of matches against bigger opponents, in the CL etc, and will probably make decent money on the GA+ for those games.  There are a lot of other matches, however, that I am convinced will have thousands of empty seats, and if regular seats are empty I really can't see who is going to pay GA+ prices of £250 to sit in the lower North with a couple of drinks thrown in.

Yesterday I went online about half an hour before the Claret Members' window was due to open for the Man U game, thinking that possibly they might open it early. It was indeed already open and I could have booked seats there and then - but at eye-wateringly expensive prices in various premium lounges scattered all over the ground, prices which the supporters I know would either refuse to pay or couldn't afford. Where did all these premium seats come from? Obviously from the areas where the regular fans used to sit. To come back to your point, Pat Mustard, how often will all these new areas sell out? How often are we going to fill the stadium as we have in recent seasons? (Perhaps we'll never know, because they won't publish the attendance).

[Legion]

Done.

[Rudy Can't Fail]

Great read, Dave. Up until now I've loved that Villa fans have been 'traditional', it's what makes Villa Park so great. Reading that Celtic fans visiting us will be paying half of what Villa fans will have to pay demonstrates just how wrong the pricing is.

Is there time to address and correct the stupidity?

[Clark W Griswold]

they've decided to shake us off

If this was included in the price for a CL ticket it might make it more tempting. Or at the very least a free sausage roll.

[Mister E]

Villa are not ...  Instead of this we are risking breaking the bonds with our most loyal supporters, so when new fans turn up for their day-trip they are going to find a potentially toxic atmosphere, lots of empty seats and in a ground that is still not fit for purpose.  And all of this on the back of the best team we have had in 30 years - it's madness and I cannot believe anyone will be thinking in 12 months time that Chris Heck has done a remotely good job.

Yes, Pat, this is the core of the issue here.

[Mister E]

Great read, Dave. Up until now I've loved that Villa fans have been 'traditional', it's what makes Villa Park so great. Reading that Celtic fans visiting us will be paying half of what Villa fans will have to pay demonstrates just how wrong the pricing is.

Is there time to address and correct the stupidity?

Hang on: when we pay £30 for an away ticket (I don't because I cannot get an away ticket) we might well be paying only 50% of what some home fans are paying (and, in London, it'll be 30-35% of some of the home fans' pricing).

[Accent Guy]

Just went on to buy our Bayern tickets. Nothing left in GA or even hospitality. We had extended our flights back for this game and now can't go. Basically, the club will feel vindicated in their pricing and will surely be considering the prices too cheap if anything.

Not even hospitality is available for Bayern. As far as I can see on the website.

All in all Heck has done the job he was brought in to do. The tickets aren't too expensive as if they were, they wouldn't be sold out already. That's precisely how they will look at it.