Citing safety precautions, Arsenal have decided that Liverpool will only receive 5,186 tickets for the FA Cup fifth round clash at the Emirates on 16 February despite being eligible for 9,000.
The allocation, which is the same received by Sp*rs and Coventry* in the previous rounds of this year’s competition, ensures that all travelling supporters will be housed in the lower tier of the Clock End. The price for these tickets is set at a maximum of £35.50 with the game recently given Category B status.
The Gunners are believed to have expressed concern at the prospect of thousands of Reds fans potentially standing in the upper tier where they’d have sandwiched a band of Gooners in corporate seats. We only let that happen when we’ve continental opposition in town, because they’re all civilised with their choreographed chants and whatnot.
The spare upper tier tickets, those that aren’t already occupied by Arsenal season ticket holders, will be sold at £54 a pop to Gooners.
Liverpool fans’ group Spirit of Shankly, who’d previously joined forces with the AST and BSM to rally Arsenal to keep prices down, expressed frustration at the ‘missing’ 3,814 seats:
“In our letter to both clubs last week, we made clear that as well as reduced ticket prices and consideration being taken for the impact on supporters’ travel arrangements with regards to any proposed kick-off time, that we wished to be given the full 15% allocation in line with FA rule (21(a)).
“This would amount to approximately 9,000 tickets, somewhat higher than the announced allocation. As a result, we have immediately re-written to both clubs today to ask them to explain this decision.”
We suspect Ivan Gazidis will be filing that letter in the bin, where it’ll join Kim Kallstrom’s medical records and Joe Kinnear’s CV.
If the game ends in a draw, Liverpool will be well within their rights to give Arsenal a reduced allocation, below the 15% stipulated by the FA, for the replay.
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*Coventry were offered the full 9,000 tickets but after slow sales settled on the lower figure.
A sensible decision that takes the safety and well being of mugs everywhere at heart.
given that they’ll lose, I don’t care if we give them half the stadium. More of them go home disappointed.
Safety, hah. It’s revenue maximisation again. In the short term, maybe it appeals to an Arsenal fan because it means more allocation for our support in the stadium. In the long term, since we have the highest prices in England, Arsenal fans are going to miss several opportunities to watch the team play away at more reasonable prices (even including travel cost).
Less away support, higher long term fan expenditure. The FFP better come in pretty damn fast because it sure isn’t the corporates feeling the pinch.
The scousers are the most primitive fans in Engalnd.
How many games have you attended at Anfield and Goodison again?
Your from Indonesia DICKHEAD !!! And learn how too spell BELLEND…
Learn the difference between “to”, “two” and “too” before chastising someone on their ability to write English. You only make yourself look stupid.
Please tell me that “Your” and “too” were jokes. Please.
you ARE, not your
Thank Fuck your normally silent stan
With YOUR help I have learnt to spell BELLEND. Let me return the favour Stan, ‘your’ is not the correct contraction of ‘you are’, that would be correctly spelt ‘YOU’RE’.
Pretty racist, Stan. We saw another racist get banned last month. Are you trying to be the next one to go? Certainly no-one would miss you.
By the way, have you ever heard that old saying about glass houses and stones? It’d be a good idea to use correct spelling and grammar in your own racist post, if you are trying to use your racism to point out someone else’s spelling and grammatical errors.
Idiot.
Maybe he is trying to be like John Terry?
I think by Indonesia, he means that Indonesian Gooner is unlikely to have attended any live games. How would he know Mugsmashers are cavemen?
It is the geography that matters.
I am from South East Asia myself, not really too bothered by the remark given the context of it.
Look, I’m a foreign gooner as well. Scousers might as well be the most primitive… but I don’t think we should be commenting on that at the end of the day. It’s a very Jose Mourinho-like thing to do.
Millwall will have something to say about that!
Oh dear. Give with one hand, take away with the other.
5,186 still to many……
What if we offer them 5,186 + 1?
They will refuse with Dignity, being absolutely dignified.
That one odd seat will be in the middle of a sea of Goons!
Ooh, I fucking love that idea! Show some balls, Ivan – do it!!
I honestly did not think the fun that came with THAT bid (+1 pound) would live this long. Arsenal.
What the hell are you smoking Jodan?
Fair enough do it to Sp*rs, that’s pretty funny! But the scousers…. actually that’s pretty funny too
i think we only gave Sp*rs some 3000 odd. Glad to know that the board doesn’t see anybody lower than that scum.
We’ll only realise the implications of this when we get a massive 1/4 final and someone does it to us. Its almost saying scousers are too mental to have at THOF. Our own away fans are equal to any in noise, celebration and standing. We’re just making a rod for others to beat us with.
I do wonder about this.
They gave Chelsea 9,000 in the League Cup & they stood up all game long. It would be funny if that was the reason the club won’t do it any more?
Personally I’m happy.
Gives me something to aim at if the queue is to long for the WC’s at half time.
I kid of course but imagine the beautiful arc that’s possible from that height……
Understand why they’d be pissed off but if it cuts their noise & raises ours even 5% then I’m all for it. Fortress Emirates & fuck all the rest
Yes. Who needs away fans in football? Fuck them!
You didn’t give us any Suarez, so now you wouldn’t be getting anything from us!
Fuck ’em.
I don’t know why people go all PC when someone calls out foreign fans chatting shit about something they don’t understand.
These things are killing our game one blow at a time. Unfortunately, our club is on the forefront of this assault on the working class game.
Dedicated Daily Mail reader, this one
Not being funny but with a name like Anil, surely your heritage has been “foreign” at some point?
Couldn’t spell anal.
What does it matter anyways? I’m surprised 9’000 of them can make the trip.
‘Cos they’ll never get a job! They’ll never get a job…sign on!
Bin dippers
If they let us know the proper release clause amount we should give them 5,186 1 seats.
…they are smoking something at Anfield.
I think it’s to do with the fact that we’re giving them reduced pricing. If the home support are paying more, then we make more money by giving them more seats, which means we can afford to allow the Scousers to pay less. It’s one or the other. Realistically, they could have put it as a category A and given Liverpool the 9000 seats, and only 5000 would have paid.
If we want to compete with the likes of City and Chelski in transfers, we have to charge more… It’s unfortunate, but we do have debts to pay.
Sad but accurate. If every club competed based on commercial contracts and stadium revenue, the only team we’d have to compete with would be United. Like in the good old days when it was us and them every year for the title.
Funny how most of the people applauding this move have never seen a ticket before….
But how do you know that for a fact?
On the subject of standing I find it pretty frustrating that red action can stand all game no pribs soon as anyone else stands they are threatened with being ejected with a game ban. FFS Arsenal get your priorities right. Do you want an atmosphere in the stadium or not? I was pulled out of the crowd on sunday and told to sit or leave. Lmao the strward told me fans who have been coming years cant see. Well fucking excuse me ive only been attending games since the 80s si I guess that makes me a nobody. I took… Read more »
5000 scouters are plenty. The 5000 spurs “fans” ripped out sets, coined stewards and Theo. The 9000 chavs were hideous and intimidating on the walk home. Napoli fans beat up locals and business. Experienced a mounted police charge for the first time after Spurs early in the season. Sensible decision.
Thames river police apparently couldn’t handle the Viking invasion.
Anyone else think this is going bite our away support in the arse later on?
I agree. Keep the troubled away fans numbers as low as possible. Personally, I won’t give spur fans a single seat in Emirates stadium. I have seen how they behaved throwing things at Walcott. I still haven’t forgotten how they reacted when Cambell went there for the first time after signing for arsenal. They are just bitter bunch of scum.
Just in case you haven’t see, have a look.
http://youtu.be/TF3uTAp2TNE
George best nailed it but Rodney marsh was trying to justify Tottenham reaction.
some of these comments are disgusting, football is for everybody both home fans and away fans
Can’t really blame them for wanting a day out in London, have you ever been up there, even makes Tott*nham look palatial …
It’s true, they aren’t civilised, they’re scousers and more of them left at home the better.
I am an avid Arsenal fan and my second favourite place in England behind London is Liverpool. It’s a fantastic place to be. This North South divide is pathetic. There are shitty places and people in both London and Liverpool yet they are two fantastic places full of interesting people. If we don’t treat them like hooligans they may well be less inclined to act like them.
Wow. Bit of a YouTube moment at the beginning of this thread. All we needed were a couple of N bombs, a cat playing a piano and a mention of Justin Bieber and I wouldn’t have known none the wiser
thanks Obama
Just hope liverpool come to us still hangovered from the “we are above everton cup” celebrations…
Guys, totally off topic but are there any auction style fantasy football games that I could play online. Oh ones that are free.
Thx
Anfield can only offer us a maximum of around 6000 seats. Why should we offer more than them. Plus the club makes an extra 60000k from selling those 3000 tickets to gooners instead of scousers. Have to wonder if they would have been given more seats if the game wasn’t reclassified.
I can understand if this is done on the grounds of safety. If there are any other motives – and I’m quite sure there aren’t – then I don’t think it’s in the spirit of fair play. I’ll get thumbed down for this, but nonetheless. Anyway, it doesn’t sound like something our club would do, too classy for that.
What does it matter if you get thumbed down? its just your opinion this is what annoys me about this site getting thumbs down doesn’t make you wrong…
No disrespect to the home crowd – I can hear the chants all the way across Asia. But, just out of curiosity, do only the away fans stand up and chant with their hearts out for the whole 90 minutes? As far as I can comprehend, most Gooners at home just sit and watch. Like it’s a movie. Forgive me if I’m wrong.
Away fans at all grounds tend to be allowed to stand, where as all clubs seem to force home support to sit. I think Swansea or Cardiff are experimenting with moving ‘persistent standers’ to a certain section. For me the sooner we reintroduce standing the better.
Hey Goons I’m headin to my first away game v Liverpool on Saturday, massively pumped, any ideas which pub fellow goons will be in pre match?? Cheers.
Pretty much every pub within a mile radius! The Wetherspoons next Hihbury & Islington tube is always packed with gooners before a game.
I quite like the Herbert Chapman on Holloway Road (natch). Especially after the game when there is more likelihood of getting a beer!
My personal preference is for stronger ‘craft beers’, so I usually have a few in the Craft Beer Co’s Islington pub, but that is near Angel and so about 25 minutes walk to the Emirates.
Happy pre and post game drinking!
I’m pretty sure the Herbert Chapman has closed down now :/
I think he was asking about pubs in Liverpool … you know, the key phrase being “away match on Saturday” …
Alan Green is a cunt
“If the game ends in a draw, Liverpool will be well within their rights to give Arsenal a reduced allocation, below the 15% stipulated by the FA, for the replay.” Is this true? I know Sp*rs threatened the same but I guess the FA have approved this reduction in ticket allocation as they agree that there are safety concerns. Would they approve a reduced allocation on the basis of ‘they did it first’? I should add that I think it would be only fair if they did. Also – I’ve seen a lot of sarcastic rhetoric along the lines of… Read more »
I’m looking at getting a ticket for this game. It’s a bit irritating that the Scousers will have the better seats and at £20 cheaper than Arsenal fans on the tier above.
Thanks Shuggie, but I meant the game IN LIVERPOOL this Saturday! Not been up there so not sure where the travelling Goons will be boozing….
Oops. Sorry, for the patronising respone in that case! The key word I missed was ‘away’!
Not helped by the fact that we are playing them twice in the next couple of weeks!