There are some positive developments in the Tottenham Hotspur Supporters Trust’s efforts to get the club to reconsider their recent season ticket price increases.
Price increase was poorly received
Earlier this year, Tottenham announced that their season ticket prices would be increasing by six per cent for the 2024-25 season and this decision led to plenty of anger among the fan base.
THST were critical of the club for deciding to do this at a time when their revenue was increasing and fans were dealing with a cost of living crisis.
Even more controversially, Spurs also decided to roll back senior concession, revealing that it would be eventually phased out, with THST deeming the decision as “unacceptable”.
Daniel Levy will meet with the Trust
The Trust has now resolved to keep putting pressure on the club on this issue and even revealed that Levy has now agreed to meet with the fan advisory board to listen to their concerns.
In a statement to Football.London, THST said: “Spurs is one of the richest clubs in the Premier League, generating massive amounts of money through sound investment in the stadium and infrastructure and the additional events and activities this enables.
“However, Spurs charges amongst the very highest prices for matchday and season tickets, risking pricing out ‘legacy’ fans who have and always will follow the club, through thick and thin. THST believes that the extra revenues raised should be reflected in ticket prices.
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“In our recent survey of Spurs fans, 85% of respondents disagreed with the club’s decision to stop issuing new senior season tickets and to reduce the discount given to existing senior ST holders. In fact, just 6% agreed with this policy. Furthermore, 83% believed that the senior concession should be linked to the person, not the seat.
“THST believes that the misguided and unnecessary policy to end new senior concession season tickets impacts the most loyal, long-term supporters, many of whom are on low, fixed incomes. It also sets a dangerous precedent and is already triggering a race to the bottom amongst other Premier League clubs.
“We are also seeing further erosion to the availability of concessions, with no discount being given to seniors or young adults for cup games so far this season, and restrictions on who seniors can pass their tickets on to, when compared to full adult ST holders.
“However, after months of THST lobbying, and the receipt of thousands of signatures on our petition, sharing of heart-breaking stories demonstrating the impact on senior supporters, and supporting fan-led demonstrations, we believe there is some hope that things will change.
“We’ve secured a firm commitment from Daniel Levy to meet with the Fan Advisory Board to look at the situation again and find a fairer way moving forward. This is an opportunity to reset the policy and show a real commitment to a fair and sustainable pricing model. After all, if we tolerate this, who knows who or what comes next?”
Levy’s defence of decision
In the fan forum held at the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium last month, the Tottenham chairman defended the decision on senior concessions, explaining that the club have a duty to bring new fans to the stadium.
He said at the time (via The Standard): “We announced a few months ago that we would do a review on the whole concession policy at the club. We haven’t stopped senior season tickets because this year we’ve actually increased the number of seniors. We met the FAB last week and we’re going to form a working group.
“There’s an underlying problem that as time goes on if we don’t curtail the number of concession seats in our stadium, our whole financing model will come into question. Because obviously, we can’t have a situation where our ticket revenue ends up falling.
“So it’s a very complicated subject which we are going to review. But match-day concessions are still available, we’re certainly not going to stop them. And we haven’t said that we’re stopping seniors. We’ve just said we’ll put a pause on it at the moment.”
Levy was then asked by fan forum host Nihal Arthanayake if it was true that Spurs do not care about older fans, and he responded: “Absolutely not. We have a duty to look at all fans.
“And we have to make sure we have enough space in the stadium to bring through new fans. So we have to somehow find a balance which is what we’re going to engage with the FAB on and see what we can come up with.”