West Ham joint Chairman has defended the club on the ticket exchange scheme.
Gold was responding to a message from a West Ham fan called Pete Andrews who said “Why was there so many empty seats last night DG? Thought we had 50k on the waiting list !!”
The chairman replied “There is 66k capacity at the stadium, we have a license for 57k = 9k empty seats plus 10k under 16 STH who can’t all make evening games. dg”
He was also asked by Meirion Williams “Seats left empty because fans object to the owners taking 40% through ticket trader”
He replied: “The owners take nothing from the ticket sales via ticket trader, after costs all revenue goes to the managers players acquisition budget. dg”
Gold is correct in his statement that there are 66,000 seats in the stadium but the majority of the vacant 9,000 seats are covered up in netting.
Many of the 10,000 junior tickets holders who have paid just £99 for the season have shunned the ticket exchange system which would credit them £1.92 for their seat on Wednesday night. The match was category C game meaning the seat could be resold to an adult in band 1 for £40 or in band 5 for £25. If the seat was resold to a child it would fetched £40 in band 1 or £12.50 in band 5.
The match against Hull City on Saturday is another category C game meaning season ticket holders should expect to get a similar credit back. An Adult in band 3 will received £16.52 back in Ecredits for Saturday’s game. West Ham credit back 90% of the value of the season ticket portion allocated to that match but reserve the right to resell the ticket at full general admission price.
While some season ticket holders can’t be bothered to put their tickets up for resell on ticket exchange others believe they are selfish in denying those without season tickets who missed out on the ballot a chance to watch their team, they also deny the club extra income that could be reinvested in players.
Fuss about nothing. If you buy a ticket and choose not to go, you either a fool or a better judge than me. Or both.
Its a useful scheme. I couldn’t go to the Arsenal game and received £50 which I was happy with. The club resold my seat for £66 so they made a profit. The bad news is that it was sold to an Arsenal fan with no previous purchase history. It should have been sold to a West Ham fan.
Another point – child refunds should be full price. That will encourage people to sell their unused seat. The club will make a hefty profit by selling it to an adult.