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Liverpool supporters union Spirit of Shankly (SOS) today lamented the club's latest ticket price announcement as “a huge missed opportunity” for the club.

SOS and the Spion Kop group were both involved in the working group formed to look at pricing structures once the new Main Stand was complete but they have been left severely disappointed by the outcome of a process which has lasted 13 months.

And their frustration is directly firmly at the club's owners, FSG, who they believe have not been prepared to reduce the demands on supporters when there was a perfect opportunity to do so.

SOS spokesman Jay McKenna told the ECHO: “Our frustration is with the owners. We've met with a lot of the Liverpool-based staff and they've been open, honest and engaged.

“Yet we submitted proposals to the owners and asked to meet with them and didn't even get a reply.

“The decision making here came from Boston no doubt. The final say was with the owners.”

(Image: Spirit of Shankly)

The TV opportunity

The reason SOS and other fan groups believe now was the time for clubs to act on introducing “fairer” ticket prices is the arrival of a huge new wave of TV money from next season.

“You've got a situation with extra seats, increased commercial revenues and a huge increase in TV money,” said Mr McKenna.

“Liverpool as a club had the chance to do something different – but they've taken this opportunity to make even more money.

“With the extra seats (8,500 more in the expanded Main Stand) they would have made £2m match income a season just by staying the same. With these changes they will make another £2m on top of that, and that's not including hospitality.

“We said to them 'since you're getting more money from elsewhere, don't make as much money from supporters'. Liverpool have decided to make more money from supporters – more than they need to.”

Paying for the new Main Stand?

Liverpool have taken too long to expand Anfield but it is now finally happening. Reds CEO Ian Ayre publicly stated in 2014 that ticket prices would not be increased to pay for it and SOS believe the cost has been covered elsewhere.

Mr McKenna said: “The details of how much the club will make from hospitality in the new Main Stand has not been shared with us although we know that hospitality is generating a lot of money.

“The club did say that the cost of repaying the Main Stand is covered by the increases in money generated through hospitality.”

Keeping Liverpool competitive?

The finances of football are regularly ploughed over with annual reports from the likes of Deloitte and Touche and Forbes about the economic strength of clubs.

Liverpool fans are always keen to see their club is performing well in such lists – greater finances means better players means greater success is the not unreasonable thinking.

So isn't the club right to maximise bottom line revenue from match days?

SOS are clear in their view that it's not the right way forward.

Mr McKenna said: “The club might argue we need to charge more to be competitive with our rivals, to sign players and pay the going rate for players.

“Yet in Liverpool's last published accounts, the wages to revenue ratio dropped from 54% to 52% so less is being spent on wages.

“In the latest Deloitte rankings Liverpool's revenue of £298m placed them ninth in the world. Yet this extra £2m from fans won't get them anywhere near Chelsea who are in eighth. The only way to bridge that gap is with commercial deals and hospitality.

“And if Liverpool charged what we call a fair ticket price of around £30 to every fan, we'd still be well ahead of Juventus who are the tenth ranked club.

“Match day revenues as a percentage of income is falling. It's around 20% and that includes hospitality.”

The new Anfield season ticket prices

Liverpool have today highlighted the fact that 64% of season ticket prices will freeze or decrease, which certainly sounds like good news.

But SOS says the devil is in the detail.

Mr Mc Kenna said: “The season tickets are already expensive so the least they could do was freeze prices there.

“But of the 17,000 season ticket holders who will pay less, it will drop by between 1% and 8%.

“Of the almost 10,000 season ticket holders who will pay more, it will rise by 1% to 18%.

“The season tickets coming down are by £7, £5, £20, £40, £3, £60, £25 and £2. Those going up are by £6, £50, £90, £110 and £160.

“So we will have a season ticket at £1,029.”

WATCH: Echo Head of Sport John Thompson on the ticket prices

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Individual match day tickets

Liverpool say 45% of match day tickets will decrease in price, again on the face of it good news.

But Mr McKenna said: “That means 55% of fans are going to be paying more.

“On Liverpool's own numbers, of those prices that drop it's by between 50p and £4.75 per ticket. For those that go up, it's between 50p and £15 a ticket.”

A ticket currently priced £59 in the Main Stand will rise to £77, an increase of just over 30%.

And SOS are keen to get to the bottom of a £85-£175 ticket which they say was listed as a Tier 1 price in the Main Stand, depending on the category of game.

Mr McKenna said: “The club now say that ticket price of £85-£175 includes low level hospitality but it's not clear what you get for your money.

“And if they are hospitality seats, it skews the breakdown we were told of the new seats which was meant to be 50% hospitality and 50% general admission.

“It's 834 seats that come out of general admission and into hospitality – they can't have it both ways.”

Categorisation and an alternative

Different prices for different matches depending on the opposition. Categorisation as it's known has long been a target for SOS and other supporters' groups.

Mr McKenna said: “We spoke to the club about ending categorisation and having affordable tickets of around £30 for about 70% of people in the ground.

“Originally Liverpool did speak to us about categorisation but then the owners changed their minds. We as Liverpool supporters are regularly victims of categorisation when we travel away and we don't see why it should happen in our own ground too.

“We put forward a proposal which we suggested phasing in over several years at a cost of around £7m which involved general admission tickets for about 40,000 people being between £30-£40. A season ticket would be between £570-£790, a reduction for every supporter. We didn't even get the decency of a reply.

(Image: Action Images / Carl Recine)

The good news

The initiative for local supporters to get priority access for 20,000 tickets a season for as little as £9 is warmly welcomed by SOS – although they feel it could have gone further.

Mr McKenna said: “That £9 will be available for just the three lowest category games per season, then it's £14 for Category B and £36 for Category A. It's a good initiative but that's 20,000 seats per season out of the 878,693 we sell for league games.”

There is also good news for younger supporters with a new pricing band for around 1,000 17-21 year olds per league game paying just half price.

“That's fantastic and they should have done it long before now. The worry is if they have half price tickets for a few years, what happens when they hit 22? Because they better have a good job because then they're paying full whack and that's expensive.”

The process

Despite being a member of the working group SOS remain disappointed with how the process worked.

Mr MCKenna said; “We learned that Liverpool were not prepared to make less. They had a bottom line figure of match day revenues of £39m which they were going to get to whatever.

2We were really disappointed with how the club treated us. We sat down and discussed ways they could reduce ticket prices and make the money up elsewhere but they had set this target.

“From August last year, the process became very fraught and very slow. The owners took a long time to present proposals, we would go back with counter proposals but we don't even feel we've been listened to.

“There's not even been a thanks for the proposals but we're not going to do it. It was a massive opportunity to engage with supporters, explain how they do it and listen to some supporters' ideas.”

Where does it leave Liverpool FC and their supporters?

New ticket prices or not, many will feel Anfield will remain as packed as ever next season.

But for SOS it's not just about the here and now but the future.

Mr McKenna said: “The atmosphere at Anfield has been a problem. They need to reach out to supporters, not just say 'we're going to charge what we'll charge'

“If you give a bit back, think what you'll get in return. This is the crux – it's about the future of our support. If you keep treating supporters as consumers what happens to that support?

“Many people will not be able to pay those prices. You'll have people in the Centenary Stand with a big price increase while the Kop is mostly reduced so you're putting fan against fan. Someone might want to move to the Kop but it's 92% full.

“It pitches season ticket holders against those paying the match day prices.

“For us this wasn't consultation.”