Manchester United preview

Huge hikes in ticket prices are in the pipeline back at Old Trafford - they are expected to rise nine per cent overall next season and 54 per cent over five years. Mancester United themselves say only that prices have not been set yet.Whilst Charlton revealed figures this week showing the club made an operating profit of £4.7m, a net profit of £1.3m, television income represented 58 per cent of the £40.7m turnover last year and a 12 per cent increase in matchday revenue.

Addicks chairman Richard Murray also highlighted the fact that attendances at The Valley averaged 97 per cent of capacity at a time when much has been made of a nationwide trend towards falling crowds.

Murray feels that such a situation cannot continue in the long term, with most clubs' average attendances having dropped significantly earlier in the season - both for weekend domestic and midweek European matches.

The Independent Manchester United Supporters Association proposes it’s own intentions to attempt to digress the way in which Premiership football has shaped itself.

It reports that this season has seen most Premiership clubs report reduced attendances and last weekend only 6 of the 20 clubs in the league were able to sell all their tickets.

This could result in more than half-a-million unsold premiership seats by the end of the season. So far little attention has been paid to the views of the fans and so representatives of two leading supporter’s organizations, the Independent Manchester United Supporters Association (IMUSA) and the Football Supporter’s Federation (FSF) were asked to comment.

The Fans organizations identified 6 inter-related factors :

· Loss of atmosphere (e.g the loss of safe standing areas);
· Too much football on TV
· Messing around with kick-off times
· Reaction against a culture of greed at the top of football (massive players and agents salaries)
· Escalating prices (rises way beyond inflation since the Premiership was formed)
· Lack of competitiveness in the Premiership

Colin Hendrie, spokesperson for the Independent Manchester United Supporters Association (IMUSA) said, "From the fans’ point of view football is a game about rivalries and passion. It is a game that makes us want to sing to show that passion and a game that we want to enjoy with our family and friends."

"Facilities at Premiership grounds do virtually nothing to recognize this and are, in many ways, designed to kill the atmosphere that should make the match-going experience so much more intense and enjoyable than seeing the same game live on TV."

"Pre-allocated seating that often forces groups of friends and families apart during matches, zealous stewarding that keeps people seated under threat of eviction from the ground and kick-off times arranged to suit the TV audience regardless of the discomfort this causes the match-going fans are all important factors."

"On top of this, prices are now so high that many ordinary fans can no longer afford to go ‘week in, week out’ or go with their children in the way they once did. At the same time fans no longer feel connected to the players because salaries are out of all proportion to the skill of the player they are paid to and the agent who negotiated this for them."

"Premiership football without the atmosphere generated by the fans is, as a spectacle, dead. The issues of safe-standing, ticket pricing and kick-off times must be urgently addressed if it is to recover."

Malcolm Clarke, Chair of the Football Supporters’ Federation (FSF) says, " We are only a few weeks into the season and many thousands of seats have remained unsold. This must be very worrying for the chairmen and owners of the premiership clubs, especially now that the European TV rights have to be renegotiated, which threatens their incomes still further. The Football Supporters Federation has asked to participate in the Premier League attendance working group. We can only hope that the current crisis means that the needs of the fans will finally be taken into account and be met."

"Watching premiership football live is for many now an expensive luxury. Those premiership clubs that have made the decision to treat their fans as customers should not now be surprised when these fans start to behave like customers, by picking and choosing the matches they go to."

"If premiership clubs want to reverse this downward trend in match-day attendances they are going to have to listen very carefully to what fans want from their match-day experience and start to work with them to make sure that this is what they get.

Murray presumably goes along with most of that.

For a detailed analysis of the head-to-head between the two sides, click here