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Away Season Ticket Schemes Causes Uproar Through Lack Of Fairness As Villa Chase Easy Money

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With everything else going on in Aston Villa land this summer with talk of takeovers, cash flow problems, Financial Fair Play holes, administration and player sales – the club announcing the away season ticket scheme for the coming 2018/19 campaign should’ve been an opportunity for fans to focus purely on football.

With weeks of silence from owner Dr Tony Xia sadly continuing despite his recent Twitter statement, it seems our owner may in fact not appreciate the goodwill of fans with the way record numbers signed up quickly for new season tickets this year, despite the concerns all fans should have.

Particularly in the current climate, Villa should’ve been looking to reward long-term fans and whilst nobody expected reductions, plenty believed the deal would at least acknowledge loyalty. Whilst our Board may not count planning or sticking to a budget as a talent, plenty of fans do as they juggle life, commitments and still find a way to follow the club in the money hungry game we now live in.

So what was our new away season ticket scheme – read all about it Here.

The red flag for fans looking for an acknowledgement of loyalty was in discovering that changes had taken place to our priority distribution of tickets.

Following the club no longer gives you priority if you can believe that. There are now no restrictions on how many games you attend and existing members from 2017/18 get to pay the princely sum of £25 for no real benefit at all compared to last year – oh – you can choose your own seat subject to restrictions and you no longer get charged for all games and have to seek a refund, and existing members get their own dedicated window to purchase.

On the other side of the coin, new members can pay £40 and receive exactly the same benefits and the exact same priority.

The caveat is, Cup and Play-Off tickets will be based on previous match attendances.

I don’t believe an extra £15 from fans is going to get our owner out of the mess he’s overseen, especially as our away core fans get pooped on in the process.

Reaction to this genius, quick we need money plan, has been typically forthright.

Welcome to the new Villa!

I think for potential libel reasons, JF passed this to me, with the comment.

“If only there was something like an away ticket consultation group or a, I don’t know, fan consultation group where the club could get feedback and suggestions from the fans. Oh hang on a minute, there is!”

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