Arsenal tickets: Wenger warns fans that TV money will be used for transfers, not lowering prices

Tickets please: Arsene Wenger
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James Olley5 February 2016

Arsenal manager Arsene Wenger today warned supporters that Premier League clubs will use the new bumper television deal for transfers and not to lower ticket prices.

Many Gunners season ticket holders have reacted furiously after the club confirmed fans will be required to pay an additional fee of between £7 and £30 to attend the Champions League last 16, first-leg match against Barcelona.

The first seven home cup matches are included in an Arsenal season ticket, subject to match categorisation. Six Category A matches are built-in across all competitions, but the fact Bayern Munich were in Arsenal’s Champions League group — combined with three FA Cup matches at Emirates Stadium this season — have meant the high-profile Barcelona fixture will trigger an extra charge, as will any future ties should Arsenal progress.

Top-flight clubs are under increasing pressure to address ticket prices after it was confirmed the new TV deal will be worth in excess of £8billion for the next three seasons.

But Wenger said: “We are a company who, on one side [the fans], want you to buy more players. What will happen is the prices of the players will go up and you will need this supplement of money coming in to buy new players. I believe that the pressure on spending the money will become bigger and you cannot necessarily distribute the money to other people.

“What we do, we stabilise our prices to give access to other players and we have stabilised now for many years.”

A club spokesperson pointed out Arsenal have frozen ticket prices for seven of the last 11 seasons and said in a statement: “Depending on the number of matches played in a season and the categories assigned to them, this could result in a refund or additional cost to the price of each season ticket. For example, season ticket holders received a refund on this season’s prices, due to the categorisation of matches last season.

“For this current season, due to the number of matches played and the categories assigned to them, we have communicated to all season ticket holders that there will be an additional cost, which will be added to the season ticket price for next season.”

"We believe this is the fairest way for us to run our 26 game season ticket package which is based on categorisation of matches. This means in some seasons, such as last year, fans will get a refund on their season ticket price and others, such as this, will need to pay more."

Premier League clubs voted this week against the introduction of a cap of £30 on away tickets, with Arsenal reportedly among those who opposed the measure.

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Wenger believes that China’s emergence as a financial powerhouse in football terms will drive the cost of transfers up even further towards the first £100m player.

Chinese Super League clubs have already surpassed Premier League mid-season spending — and their transfer window does not close until 26 February — with Alex Teixeira’s £38m move to Jiangsu Suning bringing the overall total to £199.4milion, compared to £190.5m.

“Of course, the Premier League should be worried about China because China looks to have the financial power to move a whole league of Europe to China,” said Wenger.

“We are long enough in this job to know that it’s just a consequence of economic power — and they have that. Will they sustain their desire to do it? Let’s remember, a few years ago, Japan started to do it and slowed down after. I don’t know how deep the desire in China is, but if there’s a very strong political desire, we should worry.

“I believe that anyway the inflation is on our doors with the next television deal in the summer, it will move up again the transfer prices. I am sure that soon the £100m [transfer] target will be easy to reach.”

Arsenal travel to Bournemouth on Sunday searching for a first win in four games. Wenger confirmed Tomas Rosicky has suffered a partial rupture of a tendon in his thigh and will be out for two to three months.

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