I'd say that it's a pretty long way from spot on. Large bits of it are just simplistic ****ing nonsense...
"If football was merely a business, it would have died long ago. It has sustained through tradition, through shared beliefs and a celebration of a club’s distinct culture."
This was once pretty true but has long since not been the case. Tony Evans is a Scouser and given to excessively emotive bollocks. Money has ruled football for decades. Nearly every club in this country is owned by someone from a different country. Are they in it for the distinct culture, Tony? Just look at when the games are played and club's ****ing off to play abroad at the drop of a hat. Every club sells a bit of of their soul on a weekly basis in myriad different ways. Most grounds are a shadow of their former selves. Clubs are businesses first and foremost because that enables them to be successful. The issue is how that affects football in this country in the long term.
"This was an opportunity to cement supporters’ ties to the club as well as increasing revenue. All it would have taken was to shave a few pounds off the cost of each seat."
I can promise Tony that shaving a few pounds off the ticket price wasn't/isn't going to make any meaningful difference in a positive fashion and could probably make things worse at this point. We're talking lots of money here. £100 extra per seat is just under £6m a year. Whilst we pay off an enormous debt on the stadium build and construct the hotel, housing, extreme sports centre, maybe...just maybe we need that extra money to keep our team together?
"Perhaps supporters will be happy if their cash goes towards player wages or transfer fees, though there is no guarantee of this happening."
This takes the ****ing biscuit...I mean, it's not like the club has something to spend the additional income on apart from players. You know, something expensive with lots of interest payable on it. something that cost hundreds of millions of pounds of borrowed money.....No, no, I'm coming up empty. Let's infer that Levy's going to use it to buy Joe another yacht and then burn the rest, rather than pay off the second largest debt in European football, after Manchester United.
It is hard to escape the feeling that Spurs decided on the price without taking into account the value of the people who have invested their lives in the club.
Yep, that's what successful football businessmen do. They **** off their supporters for no good reason and without thinking. Spurs may or may not have struck the correct balance, we shall see but this will have been extremely well researched and debated. To suggest otherwise is childishly ridiculous.
I'm torn on the pricing issue. It will probably decrease the number of games that I attend or the category of those games but I always believed that would be the case. I believe that the next decade, more than any other, will decide the future of our club for decades to come. Just as Scoular's 80's disaster is ruling our current status, If we get an NFL franchise, continue to make the CL and sell the housing development a premium prices, we will make the European Super League when it comes...because it's coming. If we drop back, we'll have missed the boat forever and that's what ENIC see, that this article just ignores. ENIC haven't done it for no reason. It's a big gamble. The much more interesting article is what they're risking and why?
As long as the owners continue to re-invest the money back into striving to improve the club's future and aiming for the stars, I'll wear it. When I'm paying so that Joe Lewis can take an enormous dividend, I'll be on the ramparts shouting for his head.
