D.D. wrote:
I'm not sure what we regularly charge away supporters but I am damned sure it's not the £44.03/£49.14 we had to pay for the last league game at Old Trafford.
You are obviously unaware of the practice of settling admission prices for FA/Carling Cup ties in this country.
Being a man who has to have regular dealings with the ticket office and it's employees, I am privy to the following information:-
The home club has a traditional base, break even, price structure. On top of that are the traditional factors such as steward costs, catering etc, which bring us to your bottom line ticket price? Comprendez?
From thereon, additional add on costs, traditionally due to policing bills, mean that there is a set price for breaking even or making the marginal profit. In normal cases, circa £24, £28 and £32 are the prices. For this particular high profile, midweek derby the excessive police costs dragged that up to £40.
As City have been charging £20 for Carling Cup games, MCFC wanted to sell tickets at £25. However, the away team has to agree to those reductions, as they take a share of the gates in domestic cup games, and has the option of enforcing the club to charge the full base line figure (in this case, £40) if it so wishes. United insisted that we all paid the full £40.
OK I was unaware of how they work out the base figure. I thought city would have just charged their normal league prices when Utd didn't agree to the reductions, rather than whacking it up to £40.