Matt Maher: Football is for the fans - so long as you can afford it

Next season they will be able to attend three matches completely free of charge as part of a new scheme the club eventually intends to expand across an entire campaign.

“We’re starting out on a new path, in which we will slowly give up our ticketing revenues,” explained chairman Alexander Jobst.

The revolutionary initiative will see lost ticket sales offset by 45 million Euros of investment over the next five years from a group of local companies. We want everyone in Dusseldorf to be able to experience football and we want to anchor Fortuna more firmly in our city,” said Jobst, adding: “Football belongs above all to the fans.”

Before you reach for the calendar, trust me, it is not April 1. The Fortuna For All initiative really is genuine.

Whether a similar scheme would ever be attempted in England, where the cost of going to a football match continues to rise seemingly inexorably at pretty much every level of the game, is another matter entirely. In the current climate, it seems highly unlikely, not least here in the West Midlands where ticket prices are reaching record highs.

A month or so after League Two Walsall announced their most expensive ever season ticket, Villa this week confirmed prices will be going up for the second year running.

The brilliant form of Unai Emery’s team might be fuelling dreams of a long-awaited return to Europe but from conversations had and overheard around Villa Park before Tuesday’s win over Fulham, the fact it will cost considerably more to watch the team in action next term has removed a little of the gloss.

Precisely what Villa will be charging next season is impossible to say because, in a move which screamed ‘we know this won’t go down well’, the club declined to publish the prices in the statement announcing season ticket renewals.

There was confirmation most adult season tickets will be going up by 15 per cent, after a blanket rise of around 10 per cent 12 months ago, putting the cost of the most expensive now north of £860, an increase of around £180 in the space of two years.

Yet in some areas of the stadium, the bump has been much more significant. One long-time season ticket holder in the North Stand, where prices are being brought into line with the Holte End, is facing an increase of 40 per cent for him and his teenage son.

“I’m seriously considering jacking it in,” he said.

Prices had remained frozen for several years at Villa Park before going up 12 months ago. Then as now, the club’s main case for the rise is it is necessary to boost revenues and help bridge the financial chasm to the Premier League’s Big Six, while remaining compliant with profit and sustainability rules.

It’s a fair argument and one which many supporters will accept, up to a point. More than once in this space it has been noted how gate receipts at aspiring clubs like Villa and Wolves are dwarfed by those at Tottenham, who generate more than £100million a season through the turnstiles. With the rules restricting the amount Villa’s billionaire owners Nassef Sawiris and Wes Edens can contribute each year, you have to make up the ground somewhere. It’s for the same reason Villa’s shirts will have a gambling firm on the front of them for the next three seasons.

But there is always the question of just how much difference even a hefty rise in ticket prices can actually make? Sticking £200 on to the price of each season ticket would only bring in an extra £6million a season, which in the Premier League terms might pay salaries for a couple of squad players. The club would no doubt say every little helps.

Comparisons with Big Six clubs, meanwhile, cannot ignore the nickname stems from those clubs having been the dominant force in English football for more than a decade.

Even Spurs, hapless though they might currently appear, are less than five years removed from an appearance in the Champions League final and generally win much more than they lose.

Villa’s resurgence is just 10 weeks old and while Emery may well prove the man to restore former glories, the fanbase has witnessed enough false dawns to remain wary. One might suggest benchmarking season ticket prices against the Premier League’s top eight, as Villa claim to have done, feels a little premature. It is also interesting to note the most expensive ticket at Villa Park next season will only be around £100 cheaper than the dearest at the Etihad Stadium, where Manchester City are on course to deliver a sixth Premier League title in seven years.

Raising prices because other clubs do it has always been a weak argument. That Villa’s season tickets used to be among the Premier League’s affordable always felt to their credit and perhaps reflective of their location in a working-class region hit hard by recession and more than a decade of austerity. The club claim they are “acutely aware” of how the cost of living crisis is impacting supporters but like many businesses who say similar, you wonder whether they really do?

Still, with 33,000 now on a waiting list which seems to grow with every passing official statement, Villa can be pretty confident of replacing existing season ticket holders who decide the increase is too steep, or simply cannot afford it.

Supporters being priced out of the game is nothing new, of course. Football has long ceased to be a working-class sport, yet the number of fans faced with setting a monetary limit on their loyalty has never been higher.

“This place will end up like Blues supporters have always claimed it has been, full of people from the shires who can afford it,” one supporter grimly opined on Tuesday.

An extreme view? Maybe. But one thing of which you can be fairly certain is ticket prices won’t start getting cheaper anytime soon. And though it is Villa currently in the spotlight, they are hardly the only club asking their supporters to contribute more. The announcement of Wolves’ season ticket prices for next season is awaited with interest.

In Dusseldorf, they say football belongs to the fans.

The same still applies here, so long as you can afford it.