Premier League agrees to £30 cap on away tickets

This is long overdue; all credit to the lads who campaigned for it.

Always proud to be a Toffee even when I feel things aren’t quite right.

Sky have invested an unbelievable amount of money into The EPL, and you can't tell me that the passion in the stands, hasn't helped clubs get the best deal possible.

Big Thank You to everyone involved in this campaign though, for helping to keep money in our pockets.

Everton almost always sells out their away allocation – back in the day I had to go into the home end on more than one occasion. It’d be a shame to see that away support diminished – especially as the away games seem to be the only source of pleasure watching the Blues these days!

Thousands of empty seats, but they wouldn’t up our allocation. At least the traveling blue army, is still something to be feared, anyway!!

http://www.theguardian.com/football/2016/mar/09/premier-league-away-fan-tickets-capped

Let’s see more and more taken from players, managers and agents and the money put back in the fans pockets, these price reductions have been a long time coming and are long overdue, the game is nothing without fans, let’s make sure all the Premier League clubs understand this and make them play the game, the players have had milk and honey since the Premier League started now it is the fans turn, and these reductions are not enough.

Kevin Miles when asked on talksport did the anfield walkout have anything to do with it, he was quite insistent it did not and that it was a dispute about home tickets with their own club, and that the FSA had been campaigning for a number of years for a reduction.

Later on the main ITV news Ian Payne said this price reduction all started from the Liverpool walkout!

So there you go the whole country brain washed again into thinking this was the red shites idea.

You're always going to get misinformed journalists ready to exhibit their ignorance on a whole range of subjects, the Football Supporters Federation (FSF) CEO, Kevin Miles, was completely correct when he stated that the Liverpool supporters recent walkout had nothing whatsoever to do with the 㿊 away ticket price cap announcement; their protest was a local issue regarding increases to their 2016-17 season tickets which was seen as an insult following extensive cooperation on a ticket price working group.

Having said that, whilst the FSF initiated the 'Twenty's Plenty' campaign, the Spirit of Shankly (SOS) did organise the first protest to the Premier League in London. Following several meetings in Manchester, which Evertonians attended, fan organisations from all over the country descended on London. SOS organised their own coach but, being a different breed, we took the Virgin and arrived faster and fresher. You can read the report of that demonstration: Merseyside fans hail success of Premier League HQ ticket price protest

That was almost three years ago; since then, there's been further demonstrations in addition to many meetings with Scudamore and the Premier League sponsors. To be fair, it was very much a case of pushing on an open door with these people; they could see the benefit of promoting a better deal for long-suffering away fans.

In 2013, concerned by falling attendances and lack of atmosphere affecting their product, they set up the 'Attendance Working Group' whose aim was to develop an acceptable policy in line with the aims of the FSF campaign. It was different with the clubs, particularly the usual suspects who are forever motivated by greed and greed alone.

It was therefore refreshing, and for Evertonians a proud moment, when Everton CEO Robert Elstone alone spoke eloquently in favour of capping away ticket prices at the 5½-hour Premier League club meeting in February. His speech, at the time, fell on deaf ears when, following a poll, seven of the twenty clubs rejected the proposal. Yet, when the clubs reconvened in March and the proposal was put to an official vote, it was unanimously agreed.

Robert Elstone's words are worth remembering, "On away ticket pricing, we welcomed the scrutiny on us and our Premier League rivals, we welcomed being held to account and we now welcome the collective decision of the clubs." 

It's a step in the right direction, it's a victory for activism – but, most of all, it's a victory for common sense.

It was the lazy journalism on the ITV news which pissed me off and the fact that no-one picked up on the fact Everton had tried to address the prices at a Premier League meeting.