Category: Football

#PriceOfFootball- Coventry City ticket prices rise

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#PriceOfFootball- Coventry City ticket prices rise 

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Coventry City fans haven’t had much to celebrate in recent seasons, and today’s BBC Price of Football survey shows that despite that they’ve been paying more money to line the pockets of the club’s hedge fund owners, SISU.

The cheapest match day ticket to watch Cov is 9% above the league average, and the cheapest season ticket is 5% above it. Getting a programme, a pie and a cup of tea will cost you more at the Ricoh than the league average. A child’s shirt will set you back £36, 12% above the league average, and an adult shirt is £45 – the highest in the league!

The mega-rich owners of clubs like CCFC don’t care about football fans, they just want to make money out of our game. Ticket prices in the German Bundesliga are cheaper than tickets to watch Cov – because clubs in Germany are largely owned by fans, who care about the game. Reclaim the game – kick out hedge funds and big businesses!

If you want to read more about the socialist programme for winning back football for the fans – click here to read our Reclaim the Game pamphlet!

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Fifa: invest in working class sport, not profits

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Fifa: invest in working class sport, not profits

Coventry City fans protest against owners SISU

The below article from The Socialist was written by Socialist Party member Jane Nellist, who is joint divisional secretary of Coventry NUT and the secretary of Coventry Trades Council.

Fifa, football’s corruption-ridden international governing body, elected its new president on 26 February.

I’m a lifelong Baggies supporter (West Bromwich Albion). Like millions of working people across our planet, I enjoy the thrills, as well as the frustrations, of a game of football. It offers 90 minutes of escape from the drudgery of living under capitalism and the pressure of work and austerity.

But just as workers in their workplaces are exploited by big business, those at the top of the organisations that run football exploit the fans.

It’s often described as the ‘beautiful game’. But behind it lie ugly, bribe-taking, pro-big business organisations, the biggest being Fifa itself.

Even a scene from the new Sacha Baron Cohen film Grimsby refers to this. The main character, Nobby, a football hooligan, is told by his brother, a top spy: “Meet the head of the biggest crime syndicate in the world.” Nobby replies: “What, she runs Fifa?”

The big question for football fans around the world is: can Fifa reform itself? New president Gianni Infantino spent €500,000 of European football organisation Uefa’s money to travel the world in the run-up to the election.

Can Infantino fumigate this multi-billion pound organisation of the stench of corruption? I don’t think so. It’s too infected with greed and bribery for us to have any faith in it.

Football’s huge profits should be democratically controlled by fans, and invested in local communities across the world. To enable boys and girls to enjoy the true spirit of the game. The social interaction, team work, discipline, exercise – the joy of playing.

As the Socialist Party’s John Reid has excellently argued in his sell-out book Reclaim the Game: “the fight to democratise football is linked with getting rid of big business domination within it.” It’s time to show Fifa the red card!

  • ‘Reclaim the Game’ by John Reid: a socialist approach for football – £3 from leftbooks.co.uk

BBC Reveals #PriceOfFootball – Reclaim The Game!

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BBC Reveals #PriceOfFootball – Reclaim The Game!

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The BBC released its “Price of Football” survey this week, which revealed the price of following 207 football clubs across the UK. Since last year ticket prices have risen by 4.4% – more than treble the rate of inflation, and above the increase in the cost of living.

Coventry City fans have suffered a lot in recent seasons, spending a year playing 35 miles away in Northampton – now we’re back at the Ricoh, and matchday tickets usually cost at least £20! If you want to get a cup of tea and a pie, that’s another £5.50, and £3 for a programme. At least we’re not Chelsea fans though – their cheapest matchday ticket is a ridiculous £50!

It costs more to watch some non-league games in the UK than to watch 3 of the best teams in Europe – Barcelona, Real Madrid and Bayern Munich! This is partly because many European teams, particularly in the German Bundesliga, are owned by their fans and the community, so prices are kept low.

Football clubs think they can get away with ripping us off, because we love our teams and we’re not going to shop around and watch a cheaper or “better value” side – but the more they increase prices and rip off fans, the more we’re priced out of the game working people invented.

We need to kick big business out of football so supporters and local communities can democratically run clubs, stadiums and football as a whole – reclaim the game!

Coventry Council Sells Ricoh Arena to London Wasps

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Coventry Council Sells Ricoh Arena to London Wasps

Ricoh

After spending a year playing 35 miles outside Coventry in Northampton, CCFC’s recent return to the Ricoh Arena was welcomed by football fans across the country. Despite this step forward, however, the issues over the ownership of the club and the stadium have continued. A recent bid from London Wasps Rugby Club to purchase ACL, the company which runs the Ricoh, has been accepted unanimously by Coventry Council, putting the future of CCFC and Coventry Rugby Club in doubt.

The bid has been accepted without a full public consultation, and without the people of Coventry knowing the full details of the deal. The Wasps chairman, Derek Richardson, now owns 100% of ACL, having paid Coventry Council and the Alan Higgs charity £2.77million each, and taking on ACL’s £14.4million loan from the council. The council claims this deal is best for the club and the people of Coventry – but how do we know if they don’t give us the full details? Our money built the Ricoh, now it’s being stolen from us by a rich businessman from the other side of the country who couldn’t care less about us or our clubs!

In 2003 when Coventry Council was debating building the Ricoh there were 3 Socialist Party councillors who held the balance of power on the council and forced a full public consultation and debate. The views of the people of Coventry and Sky Blues fans were sought and as a result the Socialist councillors voted to build the new stadium. The current makeup of the council, with 43 Labour and 11 Tory cllrs, has led to a unanimous decision taken behind closed doors to lease out our stadium for 250 years – and we don’t even know the details of the bid!

Dave Nellist speaking to the press today about the sale

Dave Nellist speaking to the press today about the sale

Coventry already has a rugby club and a football club – London Wasps relocating here threatens both of them. CCFC fans can also sympathise with Wasps fans whose club is being moved 80 miles across the country – why should they lose their local club?

SISU and the council have shown repeatedly that they don’t have the best interests of the club of the people of Coventry at heart – the businesspeople who own Wasps don’t either. They’ll keep on selling us down the river – the club should be owned and run by the fans.

Football and big business: time to reclaim the game

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John Reid (From the Socialist Newspaper)

At the start of the new football season, the same old robbers are wrecking the game. Since the outset of the Premier League, over 50 clubs have gone into receivership.The latest club in trouble is Coventry City. Docked ten points, and without a ground due to the antics of the money men in charge, fans have to travel to Northampton to see their team play!

Mismanagement has already ruined Portsmouth, Luton Town and also Glasgow Rangers, which was expelled from the Scottish Premier following off-field dodgy dealing.

Football is a game at the top owned by billionaires and played by multi-millionaires.

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