Thunderbirds fans may remember the Tracys using ‘FAB’ instead of ‘roger’ when acknowledging radio coms as International Rescue set off to save the world. In football these days, FAB is less heroic. It stands for Fan Advisory Board and is a Premier League sub-standard way for clubs to speak to fan groups. It’s to try and save clubs from regulation.
More than a year late and only reluctantly negotiated, our club has finally published details of its FAB. Members of the West Ham United Supporters’ Trust (WHUST) have narrowly voted to join. But we are fully aware we risk being the club’s puppets on a string.
The WHUST board outlined the good and bad points of the negotiations with the club and, holding its collective nose, recommended voting yes to join the new body. The member vote was just 59% in favour. It shows the level of distrust among supporters of the current club owners and management.
The one hope is that the club will now start to respond over the major issues. The biggest issue this season is tickets. The prices have soared, but worse has been the attack on concessions. The club has backtracked a little but will it give more ground?
The current club owners have long made clear that they think West Ham fans are revolting. Now we are. Fans are in open rebellion. The Independent Supporters Committee – the umbrella group made of several fan bodies – has called for fans not to attend the pre-season game against Celta Vigo on 10 August. The boycott means tickets are selling badly.
Concerned that there may be a call for further protests once the season gets started, the club has agreed to speak to fan groups ahead of the FAB’s first official meeting in September. CEO Lady Brady has called the meeting after fan groups wrote to her personally, detailing fan opposition to the concessions and ticket pricing issues.
The club is trying to schedule the meeting after the Vigo game and before the Villa match. While WHUST is backing the current protest, this isn’t about sabre-rattling.
WHUST will continue to work to find a compromise that helps the club compromise on its concessions withdrawal without losing face. We have already sent a document to the club outlining a series of alternatives to the blanket ending of concessions to new purchasers in all but the worst seats.
We suggested four specific options:
- Immediately permit those with existing concessions to pass on discounted tickets to the next generation within the family – the next child or grandchild.
- Reintroduce concession pricing across all bands but restrict the proportion of seats that can be sold at a reduced price.
- Reintroduce unrestricted concession pricing to two additional bands, so that concessions are available in 50% (down from 75%) of current ticket bands.
- Increase the price of concession seats in the higher bands.
We received no response to our document. However, the club did announce in July:
‘We understand the need for our over-66 supporters to have access to concessionary seating within the lower stadium bowl and are therefore making concessionary tickets available for over-66 supporters in Bands 3 and 4. These tickets can be purchased with a 25% concessionary discount, making them some of the cheapest lower-bowl tickets across the Premier League.’
WHUST’s view is that while this minor row-back by the club should be welcomed, it does not go far enough. We’ve suggested detailed ways the club could row back further. With option one, we said there might be restrictions on who could take over a concession priced ticket – people with genuine family connections, for example.
For option two we gave two alternatives:
- All bands have the same percentage limit of seats available for concessions.
- The percentage of concessions seats decreases the higher up the banding, say 50%, 45%, 40%, 35%, 30% and 25%.
We also produced examples of how concession pricing might work if the value of the concessions discount were changed. The club could have a uniform percentage, or it could have a sliding scale.
We also suggested that the club’s ultimate solution could be a combination of a number of our suggestions. It’s just possible that the club has been holding off until the FAB was up and running before agreeing to any fan suggestions. It’s just possible that one or more of our suggestions is taken up.
But if you gave Betway all the available information and the club’s record so far, I reckon the bookmaker would give you good odds it won’t happen.
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