Latest cfcuk Fanzine Article (138) from the CSG
Thick, Fast and Expensive?
Commencing with the away game at White Hart Lane, Chelsea has a match every weekend and midweek right up to the end of the year, with the exception of the week following the Liverpool home game when there is an international friendly.
With the games coming thick and fast the next few months promise to be a very expensive time for match going Chelsea supporters. There are a couple of bright spots within this period with cheaper tickets for the Man Utd cup game, the two Champions League home group games and for those lucky enough to be travelling to Ukraine for the Shakhtar Donetsk the tickets are the princely sum of £5! However, there are also dark spots with Swansea charging £10 more than last season for Chelsea fans, proving that it is not just Arsenal who is ripping off away fans this season.
Then there are the ticket prices for the World Club Championship for those really lucky fans who are travelling to Japan in December. Chelsea’s allocation of 1000 is now being sold and with prices between £58 and £148 for the semi final and £74 and £247 for the final, it’s clear to see that FIFA are continuing on from UEFA’s extortionate ticketing policy.
We then come to Chelsea FC’s official travel partner, Thomas Cook who has had to cancel their trips to Copenhagen and Ukraine because of lack of take up.
Perhaps if they didn’t take so many stewards and freeloaders with them or try to make vast profits from Chelsea fans, then their trips may become both more affordable and comparable with other, unofficial tour providers who offer a far better service for ALL overseas trips.
While on the subject of foreign travel, our friends at CFC.Net have linked up with a Japanese tour company and are offering what seem like very reasonably priced packages to Tokyo in December, check out their web site.
Chelsea supporters who were present at the Emirates for our recent game there were more than happy with the great Mickey taking time off the pitch and result on it. It was great to hear some of the off the cuff songs and chants on the day and it must be terrible for gooners realising that they have to battle it out with Spurs to be London’s second best team. It almost made the £62 ticket price worthwhile!
Meanwhile the small team in West London continue to embarrass themselves with their talk of a new 30 or 40 thousand seat stadium when they can’t even sell out their current ground for their cup final against Chelsea! The result and generally rubbish day didn’t make the £50-£55 ticket prices worthwhile!
The Chelsea Supporters Group will always support the club in its fight against ticket touts but a recent case that we dealt with severely tests our co operation.
We were contacted by one of our members whose father, in his mid seventies and a season ticket holder for over 25 years, was accused of touting at the recent League cup game against Wolves.
The alleged offence took place by the west stand and despite protestations of innocence and misunderstanding the accused supporter was marched off by stewards to a security office, had his and his sons match tickets and his season ticket taken away from him, told he would not be able to attend that night’s game and was threatened with further, unexplained action.
The CSG contacted the club regarding this case and despite the club returning his season ticket and no further action being taken, steadfastly refused to accept he was not touting, offered no apology and no compensation for the confiscated tickets.
We accept that there are two sides to every story but have no hesitation in believing the one we heard from our member. All common sense points to the stewards making a mistake, on the night and a simple apology from the club and a goodwill gesture of returning the money for the unused tickets would have been satisfactory for all of us. We can only hope that incidents like this do not happen in the future.
Recent emails and website announcements regarding the Annual Lunch would suggest that the club are struggling to sell the tickets for the event. Could the price of £168 plus, of course the £1.50 booking fee, be putting people off?
Are Chelsea happy that every year real supporters are priced out of events like this and more and more people attending are only there on a corporate jolly? Silly question really!
Posted by Clff Auger – CSG Juvenile Rep
Article from the latest edition (138) of the cfcuk fanzine
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