· December 13 2024, 18:30
The Newcastle United Supporters Trust are set to continue their protests against the rising cost of supporting football alongside the Football Supporters Association and clubs from up and down the country.
The FSA created the #StopExploitingLoyalty movement as a way to highlight how fans are sick of having the spiralling costs of football put upon them. It's hard enough to live as it is right now with the cost of living crisis still squeezing the life out of ordinary families.
A trip to watch their beloved football team is supposed to be a break from reality for the working class, but instead, the hobby that they hold such a passion for is becoming too expensive to partake in with tickets getting increasingly more expensive alongside travel costs and indeed the cost of merchandise.
The NUST has protested several times already this season, joining up with Chelsea, Arsenal, Liverpool and West Ham fans ahead of recent games to make the point.
Advertisement
Untitled 2024 12 13 T165830 310
nufctrust.co.uk
The Trust sent a letter to the club this week
Newcastle United Supporters Trust will display the #StopExploitingLoyalty banner in St James' Park on Saturday
On Saturday ahead of kick-off against Leicester City, the Trust will display the #StopExploitingLoyalty banner in the Strawberry Corner as a follow-up to a letter sent to the club earlier this week (see above). You can read all about the campaign and the Newcastle United Supporters Trust's involvement here.
Meanwhile, Trust chairman Paul Karter has spoken to NUFC Feed ahead of the latest step in the initiative.
"Earlier this week NUST wrote to NUFC to continue conversations around the FSA’s campaign to #StopExploitingLoyalty and were given permission to showcase the campaign’s banner inside the stadium. We continue to stand with both our NUFC counterparts and the wider premier league populous in asking clubs to consider supporters as the overall cost of football spirals."
Advertisement
Clubs need to stop pricing out the loyal fans or they may come to regret it
Fans aren’t stupid. They understand the need for owners to make a return on their investment. With accounts being annually publicised, supporters realise that ticket pricing makes up a small part of their turnover, particularly considering the ever-increasing television riches on offer in the Premier League.
Yes, of course increasing ticket prices would increase the bottom line, but increasing ticket prices will also price out thousands of loyal fans and then there'll be nobody left to buy your tickets, thus setting you back to square one.
The match-day atmosphere is what can really make the games stand out, players thrive on it, but if the ground is filled with corporate sponsors the well-to-do upper class, that atmosphere will die and the sport will die with it. These are things that those at the top of the tree really need to think about before increasing prices so readily.