Liverpool supporters groundbreaking protest which persuaded their board to backtrack on ticket prices should be a springboard that changes the way that football club's treat their fans.

Liverpool supporters are perhaps not the favourite fans of many Premier League clubs, however their protest on Saturday when 10,000 of them walked out in protest at their club's intention to raise ticket prices next season, is a lead that should be followed by supporters of clubs throughout the country.

It proved that if football fans stand up for themselves then club's will be forced to listen.

In the past decade or so many long term supporters of Premier League club have been priced out of the game, indeed at St Mary's a lot of the fans that followed the club not just at home but away as well no longer go to games after becoming disillusioned at the rising cost of a ticket for St Mary's.

But with Saints back in the Premier League the club under Nicola Cortese seemed determined to keep putting ticket prices up and those tickets kept being sold so they took that as a licence to keep doing so.

Now perhaps the bubble has burst and hopefully Ralph Krueger and his board will be taking note on events on Merseyside and considering the pricing structure for next season.

Certainly there is the scope for change in the prices, whilst it is true that in the min prices have been frozen now for the last two seasons since Katharina Liebherr wrested back control of the club the fact is they were two high to start with.

That has been shown over the past three home games which have been far from sell outs with 3,000 seats on average empty at each game, whilst there are extenuating circumstances including initially poor results, the board should be noting that supporters do consider the price too high and are voting with their feet.

In the last home game there were approximately 2,200 empty seats in the home areas, if we assume that for that game there were 28,500 tickets for home fans(3,200 for away) and that 24,000 are taken up by season tickets etc, that means that out of 4,500 single game tickets on sale for this game, barely half were sold.

Ok the game was on TV etc but only 2,500 people out of a supporter database of over 26,000 after taking into account season ticket holders purchased a ticket.

This means that less than 5% of the non season ticket holder database went to the game.

If that isn't proof that the club have got the ticket prices wrong then what is ?

All club's including Saints have to realise that crowd's are on the wane, although you will always find enough supporters to sell out your ground for the visit of the big club's, it is clear that for the majority of games supporters do not find it value for money to pay £37 to watch West Ham etc.

A new pricing policy is needed where club's reduce prices for televised games to encourage attendances, originally TV money was paid to compensate clubs for revenue lost in reduced attendances, but that has long been forgotten and now it is seen as extra revenues, not something a club should be using to reduce prices for that game.

So the Liverpool protest should not be allowed to be forgotten, those who called them Whinging Scousers were very shortsighted, the Liverpool fans who walked out could perhaps be the catalyst that sparks a change in the way that club's view their supporters.

It has made not only the Liverpool board sit up and take notice and backtrack on their pricing structure. but it should make everyone sit up and take notice, not only football club boards but supporters, football clubs have benefited from the social media boom, fans have sat back and ranted on message boards and have not got organised, at Liverpool they did and reaped the reward of showing their club that without the supporters a club cannot exist.

So if the rest of the country allows this protest to be forgotten then they can never moan about ticket prices again, but if we all show that we may have club prejudices but underneath we are all football supporters then change can take place in the game.

If we all stand together change can be achieved, we have a voice, divided as we have been for the last decade, we are nothing.

Photo: Action Images

Zambucco added 13:36 - Feb 11 In the words of Wolfy Smith "power to the people"
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JGH added 14:17 - Feb 11 Disagree. For the size of club we are (top 10 but not one of the 'big boys' in terms of success or fan base) our ticket prices are very reasonable. Last three home games not sold out because the team had been playing awfully and the fan who cannot buy a season ticket (& therefore must pick and chooses his/her games) will not be appealed by WBA, Watford or West Ham (on TV anyway). Cue usual rubbish about 'proper fans' etc...

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Bettwsresident added 14:39 - Feb 11 I am a member but after moving to Wales with a young family I only get time to travel for 2-3 home games, and 1 away game a year. That is about right for the 3,000/26,000 ratio. I came across for Villa and West Brom and am going to Swansea this weekend (can't wait!) I might get one more game in, but the quality of the oppo makes little difference and neither does the price (within reason), it is when I can free up the time to take a whole day out.

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SaintNick added 14:47 - Feb 11 It is not about proper fans etc, its about not selling out the ground, if you have empty seats then they are clearly over priced. West ham was a fixture on the back of a four game unbeaten run with some great wins in it against the team directly above us, if we cant sell that out whether on tv or not then something is wrong
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SalisburySaint added 15:32 - Feb 11 West Ham game would have sold out if it had been 5.30 kick off from the start The very late change from the Monday night was a major contribution to both Saints and West Ham not selling all their tickets IMO, I know of loads who would have gone but had already made plans for the Saturday before the late change
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JGH added 15:32 - Feb 11 SaintNick - sorry but it isn't just about price - it is about not having a good enough product on offer. TV games will always struggle and WHU (whilst much improved) do not offer a huge appeal. I live in London & make about 4-6 home games plus a few London away every year. I was in states this weekend but had I been around WHU at 5pm would not have been a game I would have picked, even if I have friends and colleagues who support them.

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SaintNick added 15:46 - Feb 11 With respect Salisbury we have a data base of 50,000, lets say 26,000 after deducting season tickets, surely 24,000 had not made other arrangements. If we want to consider expansion etc then we need to be filling the ground week in week out regardless of the circumstances. There are always good excuses when there are empty seats. As for product on offer if you cant fill a ground when you are pushing for the top six when can you fill it

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BoondockSaint added 15:55 - Feb 11 Empty seats can also be a clear indication of the team's performance, weather, time, etc. Apparently the Scousers thought Klopp was going to work for nothing. These will be the same supporters that will walk out in protest because the team is not spending enough on players. If you want your team to by the best it comes at a price. (Although I just read somewhere that Lovern cost more that the whole Leicester team! HAHAHA!) All this talk about "new TV money" means nothing as it will just inflate the players wages. Yes, small teams will get huge money, but the bigger clubs will get even more so the pecking order will remain the same. I still say Saints should have more family friendly deals to get more kids in. The deduction in price will be made up by the money spent on food, gear, etc for the kids.

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saintmark1976 added 17:37 - Feb 11 A good post well written Nick. Clearly fans around the country have reached a tipping point. The owners of Liverpool do not "roll over and have their tummy tickled " unless they firstly acknowledge that they have a problem to deal with. With the advent of football being televised giving the public the ability to watch live streamed matches then obviously something has changed. This is not the nineteen seventies when you had to attend a match in person or watch poor recorded coverage late on a Saturday evening. The public now has far greater choice and if the clubs want to fill grounds then they will have to change also. The market (fans) is no longer captive and people are starting to vote with their feet.I would suggest that our board gives very serious consideration to at least freezing prices for next season and possibly even reducing them or unoccupied seats on match days will become the norm.

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warrens76 added 18:45 - Feb 11 Cannot agree with Nick about the stadium...look all the big clubs historically (utd a semi exception) had wildly fluctauting gates, Arsenal, Chelsea, Everton, Newcastle and Sunderland (who we regularly had bigger gates than) Villa, spuds to boot...all have had gates in the 30k and 50k's in the same season...this ability to hold them when they want to come has in the premiership very coalesced into permanent sell outs...it was not always that way but the foundation's where built for these uber clubs long ago...SFC could not hold them simple..we have to build an expanded ground and play catch up..what else..? The JPT was a classic example of what can be done, not every week, maybe not half the games but you have to have the capacity first...American football has stadiums to choke a horse, depending on the oposition their can be 30k and 80k within weeks and boy do they make money.. Can you imagine building a cinema based on average attendances? Come on grow big and prosper, a ground is for a lifetime not xmas.

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redwight added 10:07 - Feb 12 The protest by Borussia Dortmund fans, involving the throwing of tennis balls onto the pitch was even more effective I would suggest and they got to see the whole game - brilliant. One small point on the WH game, whilst the late change of kick off prevented some fans from attending, for others it was the opposite. I was one who could make Saturday but not Monday.
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LesVivian added 10:53 - Feb 12 With the 100 million pounds guaranteed to all clubs in the Premier League, for the next three seasons, it is time for the clubs to put some of this into their own supporters. Leaving aside that some of this TV money should be directed into grass-roots football, say centrally funding referees for junior clubs, most of the money will go to players and their agents. How much contribution to the club's income does the gate-money actually make? Halve the cost of tickets through the gates, whilst keeping corporate prices at current levels would send a clear message to our fans - come and see us! Although the stadiums of the successful clubs are usually full, there has been a creeping change in attendees. Well-off people are able to afford the prices - the less well-off, most of us, cannot easily afford the costs, and if we have children and grandchildren, future Saints supporters, forget it! It's cheaper to take your kids to the pub to watch the matches! This, however, deprives the kids of experiencing match-day atmosphere, and these generations will regard following football as a pub based activity. With the ridiculous amount of screening of the 'big' clubs, the smaller clubs will lose fans to these 'big' clubs, making the selling of over-priced tickets even less likely for the 'smaller' clubs. Long rant, but in summary: halve ticket prices, milk the corporate market as much as possible, and we may not lose future generations of fans!

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SaintBrock added 15:46 - Feb 12 SaintNick added 14:47 - Feb 11 It is not about proper fans etc, its about not selling out the ground, if you have empty seats then they are clearly over priced. That is a non sequitur Nick. Neither you nor I have clue as to why the ground is not full every week. It never has been in the 50 odd years I've been trudging up to The Dell or St Mary's. Price has very little to do with it. Southampton has a small population and a limited fanbase from a sparsely populated rural area of influence around it. 32000 is a very good turn out based on historical data even when trophies were at stake. There is insufficient appeal from all but the top 4 or 5 visiting clubs to get people to turn out come what may, good weather or bad and setting aside all the many other commitments that people have these days. This is why no doubt Ralph Kreuger has gone on record as saying SMS will not be expanded anytime soon.

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SaintBrock added 15:56 - Feb 12 Having said that, a big shout out for the Scousers who seem to have defied logic to get the management to cave in on prices. But... and its a very big BUT, why did they cave in without a fight? That really is the nub of the question. To appear to give up so easily must mean they have a rock solid strategy to win this war so the odd retreat whilst seems a s battle lost is not what they are concerned about. Perhaps they are ready to sell and just don't want background noise whilst doing so or maybe they'll wait until the stadium is revamped then scrap all current tickets and prices and then start again at much higher prices. Not letting trouble makers in is cure than trying to deal with them on match days. Russian military history teaches a lot about how to snatch victory from the jaws of seeming defeat.

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