To think it shouldn't cost so much for kids to go and watch their favourite football team?

[ForeverTipsy]

My child is 10 and has supported a premier league football club for a few years. He'd absolutely love to go and watch a game, so I was hoping to get some for Xmas...but tickets start at around £300 each + fees and travel.

So £700 - £1000 for two people (he'll need an adult to accompany him, and the home stadium is 4hrs drive away) to watch a 90 mins match! And that's if you can get tickets...

AIBU to think it's a really sad state of affairs?

No = you're absolutely right, this is madness. Yes = this cost is totally justified. Get over it.

£300 for 1 ticket for a 10 year old. Which club is this? My son's Premier League season ticket when he was under 16 not many years ago was £100 for the whole season.

Yes it's not nice that it is unaffordable for a lot of people but they can set their prices how they like and are obviously selling tickets at these prices.

Also you can't really complain about travel costs and time etc as the club can't take that into account in their pricing structure.

I know a lot of kids now have their Premier League club they support but then also support a smaller lower tier local club so they can go to live matches often for free.

It's premier league, it's going to be expensive.

Do you have a local team he could also follow? My ds supports our local team in the Championship and his season ticket was £100 as he's 14. Under 12s go free.
Or tickets per game.would be £20 adult, £12 child.

Take him to a local, lower league team. Or if he insists on it being a premier team, the women's matches are normally far cheaper. Less chance of dickheads in the crowd too

Which team is it? I got a ticket last season at Liverpool for £38 and all 3 of us went this season for about £120.

It would be nice if it was more affordable, but I assume they have a lot of costs to cover.

Are you sure about those figures though? My son had an under 21 season ticket for a premier league team for a whole year for £400. I didn’t pay anything like £300 when I bought a single ticket to accompany him.

Are you trying to but direct from the club or via an agency?

You don’t need to be paying that much. I suspect you have been looking in secondary sale websites which are usually crazy prices.

Without knowing which team he supports it’s hard to advise on specifics however there are a few things you can do to source cheaper tickets.

Firstly, target a game against lesser opposition. For example Man United vs Southampton will be a fraction of the price of Man United vs Liverpool.

Look at buying a membership for the club in question. Quite often for a one off modest fee you’ll get access to face value general sale tickets for many of the games.

Finally join up some of the online supporter groups on Facebook or similar. Plenty of people renew season tickets every year and sell the games they can’t attend. These are invariably on or around face value.

I’ve been to hundreds of league games in the UK and have never paid anywhere near the prices you have quoted.

The only games that necessitate prices at that level or above are major domestic or International finals.

It is Liverpool, and we live in the South West. We have taken him to some League One matches for the experience, but I'd love for him to see a match at Anfield.

Yes, I was probably looking at wrong sites, like this one?

www.livefootballtickets.com/english-premiership/liverpool-tickets.html

How? Which website please?

I'm not sure we'd get a season ticket as it's a 4hr drive away/would probably need to stay in a hotel.

My children want to go to concerts, musicals and ballet performaces. Can we get reduced tickets too? These are expensive as well.

Here's the prices set by the club, nothing like what you are quoting.

www.liverpoolfc.com/tickets/match-day-premier-league-prices

But, the ballots are mostly closed and sold.out for premier league this season, you might get lucky for next season you become a member to enter the ballots.

Don't buy from those touting sites.

…and this is why lower league clubs struggle, people following a Premier League team from hundreds of miles away.

In my (admittedly v limited) experience, you should only get premier league tickets from the actual clubs, not from all the ticket seller websites. They’re likely to not work AND are far more expensive.
And to get them from the clubs you probably have to buy club membership for you and for your son. It’s hopefully cheaper for your son. Then you have to get hold of two tickets as they are released. This is a hideous ticket queue opens at 10am type scenario and you might not get anything. But, some matches are less busy (European league or carabo cup or whatever it’s called) and they have more availability. And there are often ticket returns which become available.

It doesn't cost anything like that for any Premier League Club.

The issue you have at Anfield is that they don't have spare tickets, and you have to become a member and then go in the ballot (and you get priority if you live in Liverpool).

As others have said, there are SO many places to watch football.
My local National League side do season tickets for 12 - 18 year olds for £100 for the whole season, but they are FREE if you are under 12.

You can still "support" a Prem League club, but actually go and watch a team close to you.

It’s straightforward supply and demand. A lot of people want a product in limited supply: the price will go up. And in premier league football, there is massive demand for very limited supply, so the price goes up a lot. If the price goes down, it doesn’t mean you’ll be able to go, because the tickets will be so hard to get hold of, and go up to the crazy prices again on the resale market.

Here's what I was looking at:

Please dont buy from here, the money is not going to the club but a greedy re-seller at best. At worst those tickets won't work. Only ever buy from the club's ticketing platform.

You need to enter the ballots for Anfield tickets and you are too late for the Premier League matches this season. You might be able to pick something up for a more obscure cup game.

What about an Anfield tour instead? They are £16 for kids and £25 adults. A trip to the club shop after.

Like others have said why not support a local team as well, rather than one that's 4 hours away from you.

That's a reselling website, get them off the clubs website. They are nowhere near that price.

@ForeverTipsy unfortunately if you’re not accustomed to the ways of premier league football it can be a complete minefield. You are right, those prices would be a madness if they were what the regular home attending crowd were paying, however, a child’s ticket at Anfield probably has a face value of less than £30. The only way to get one of those face price tickets is via the club either as a season ticket holder (impossible, Liverpool has a waiting list that is decades long as far as I understand) or through their ballot system which for this season has already been done and dusted.

So your options are limited, either pay the inflated tout price as identified on the website you shared above or plan for next season and buy 2 paid memberships which allow you to enter the ballot for the game you would like to go to. It’s not a guarantee and may not get you tickets as demand hugely outweighs supply but it will give you a shot at some of those face price tickets and often memberships come with perks such as a free/discounted stadium tour.

Good luck, it can be tough when your kid is a fan of a premier league team that is difficult to get to, particularly if you aren’t a football fan yourself and know how it all works.

I grew up supporting a premier league team (well, Division 1 in those days). Not one of the biggies, but we've been top flight for decades. My uncle or my dad could decide on a Saturday to take me to the match and we could buy tickets on the day. Scuzzy pub for a drink, kids offering to "watch your van" while we were away, pie at half time.

Premier league football is a money-making racket which has left its roots behind it long ago. Players demand multimillion pound packages and it's all about selling hospitality packages and merch in an attempt to get the money back. Not to mention running fixtures around what suits Sky's subscribers.

Supporters invest their hearts into their teams. And in return for this, we get pampered prima donnas diving and play acting all over the place and a sport that takes us for granted.

My son supported Spurs which is our local team. Almost impossible to get a ticket and had to pay adult prices. But we got tickets for international cricket at Lords for buttons when he was under 16. Growing an audience, allowing young supporters to be involved.

The top flight football clubs despise their supporters. We are cash cows and nothing else.

Thank you so much! Yes, you're right, I'm a complete novice and trying to navigate this minefield.

We took him to a tour of Anfield in the summer of last year (organised a family holiday around his passion) and I've never seen him light up like he did that day. He's a quiet, introverted little boy but my goodness he came alive when we stepped into the dressing room!

Ok, so too late for this season, but I can look forward to next (annoyingly, his birthday is in January, so can't get him this for his birthday this year either). I can see on the club's website you can get membership from £20.99. Does anyone know when the 25/26 season membership will go live please?

I've also just been reading Facebook comments under an ad for the membership saying that it's a waste of money and some people still never get tickets :-( Seems you have to be really "on the ball" and be on other sites/Facebook groups to try and get face-value priced tickets nearer the date.

Encourage him to support your local team. For Liverpool, consider the Anfield stadium tour or you will more likely get tickets to a match if it’s an early cup game, a women’s game or the legends matches they do every year with Liverpool legends, not current players.

Could also try and get tickets to see England play? Something like a friendly.

Thanks everyone. He does support a few teams, including a more local one. He plays for our village team, and we take him to matches to support a team in the EFL Championship, so we've experienced a decent stadium with 30k fans in it :-)

Football is a huge passion of his, and I'm just trying to make his Christmas or Birthday super special (he's hard to buy for!). But looks like I'll have to wait until next year now.

I believe Liverpool legend games are usually in March which isn’t long after his birthday if it’s something you think he might be interested in.

Thanks, we did the stadium tour last summer and he loved it.

He does support a local team, too, and one in the EFL Championship.

Think I need to find someone who gets tickets and pick their brains. My son wouldn't mind who they were playing, just would love to experience a match at Anfield.

@SouthLondonMum22 thanks - have just joined some FB groups/followed their page for updates as their website says they've not announced it yet. Just got to hope it's not mid-week term-time!