Ian Ayre's plea to Liverpool fans threatening to walkout of Anfield

LIVERPOOL CEO Ian Ayre has said the club is not pricing fans out of football as he appealed to supporters to reconsider walking out of the game with Sunderland in the 77th minute in protest at new ticket prices.

 

Ian Ayre has pleaded with Liverpool's fans to not walkout

 

The dearest price for a ticket in the new Main Stand next season will be £77 and supporters’ groups, the Spirit of Shankly and Spion Kop 1906, has called for the walkout.

Ayre defended the new range of prices unveiled by the club this week and said: “I think there is a difference between somebody creating whatever noise they feel they've got to create to get people's attention and the facts.

“If you look at £77 as a ticket price and want to walk out on 77 minutes then it is everybody's right to make that decision.

 

“But what I would say to fans who are not sure and are thinking about it is: 'Read the facts'. £77 is guiding people in the wrong direction.

“It is 200 tickets for six games a season. The best seats in the newest stand in the country. It is less than half a per cent of the total capacity.

“There is no reference to the fact that there are 500 tickets for all the category C games at £9, all the free kids tickets, half-priced tickets for under 21s. 

“If you balance those off, the purpose was to create something for everyone.

 

“Of course everybody would like the tickets to be cheaper, including us, but that's not an option for us right now.

“What is absolutely the case is that this initiative, supported by the owners and the football club, is letting more local people in, letting more kids in and the vast majority of season tickets are down in price.

“I think it is staggering that people should walk out over that.”

Ayre rejected the argument that the new £5.14billion TV deal means ticket prices should drop. 

 

“Someone said to me “You’re pricing fans out of the stadium,” said Ayre. “How are we pricing fans out of the stadium if 65 per cent of season tickets have flattened or come down, and 45 per cent of matchday tickets have come down?

“Aren’t we feeding what we - certainly me as a Liverpool fan - have been saying for years: more young people, more local people. These initiatives are feeding that. 

“Some season tickets are cheaper than they were two or three years ago. You can never give everybody what they want but you have to try and create a range.

“What’s affordable for one person isn’t for another person. I’ve no doubt that there will be 200 people happy to pay the £77 for that seat for that game. Shouldn’t we do that to drive price down at the bottom end?”