Chief Executive defends West Brom's away allocation choices
Chief Executive Martin Goodman has defended how many tickets the club asks for from its opponents, saying they judge away allocations correctly most of the time.
Albion have come under some scrutiny from fans in recent months for taking the smaller allocation of away tickets because they often have to pay for those seats they do not sell.
The majority of clubs offer two tiers, the full allocation which is either 3,000 seats or 10 per cent of their capacity, and a smaller allocation which is usually, but not always, roughly half of that.
“It’s always a difficult one to judge but I think we get it pretty close the majority of the time,” said Goodman. “If we get it totally wrong you end up paying for tickets not used.”
That means the club is, in effect, handing money to its competitors, but fans grow disgruntled when Albion take the smaller allocation and sell out, unnecessarily stopping them from supporting their club.
Every club offers different levels, and demand fluctuates depending on form, location, and timing of the fixture.
Brighton, for example, offered four tiers for the Amex Stadium instead of two, and the club were criticised by fans for not taking the full 3,000 allocation at a new ground and instead asking for the third option of 2,550 tickets instead.
The Baggies sold out that allocation two weeks before the match, sparking complaints, but the club say they only just crept over the line on general sale and if they had the demand, they could have asked for the remaining 450 tickets anyway.
Goodman said those cases were few and far between and only affected a handful of fans.
“The worst we’ve had it was at Goodison Park last year, and only 10 or 15 people rang up to complain to the ticket office,” he said. “If we sell out, it’s always on general sale.”
On the other hand, Albion took an allocation of 1,522 for the Monday night game at the Emirates Stadium and sold fewer than 1,000 tickets because it was on television. There have also been empty seats this season at Turf Moor and St. Mary’s.
However, the Baggies have taken the full allocation for the upcoming trips to the two other new grounds on this season’s calendar.
They have taken all 3,062 seats for the visit to Wembley to play Tottenham and already sold out all 2,340 seats for their trip to the John Smith’s Stadium to play Huddersfield Town.
The ruling for the allocation of away tickets in the Premier League is: “three thousand tickets or, if the capacity of the home club’s stadium is less than 30,000, a number of tickets as is equal to 10 per cent.”
