Forest will pay the price for making fans feel taunted over 24% ticket hikes (2024)

Nottingham Forest’s biggest PR problem is that we already know what they will do with the reported extra £2m from their season ticket price rises. There is no secret here anymore. It’s less than a quarter of the transfer fee they paid for Omar Richards, signed with a broken leg and who hasn’t yet played a game. Or less than half of Divock Origi’s wages for his ill-fated loan spell.

The headline figures are eye-watering, even from a low base price. The average adult season ticket will rise by 24 per cent over a summer and with no warning.

The most expensive adult ticket is now £850 and the removal of the young adult band means that some 18-year-old supporters, the next generation of fans, will see their tickets rise by more than £600. Those who wanted to register interest in season tickets had already been asked to pay £10 to join a waiting list.

“It is imperative that the club continues to grow financially in order to remain competitive, particularly in light of the forthcoming squad cost ratio rules,” chairman Tom Cartledge’s statement read.

That doesn’t work either way you spin it: 1) the revenue gap to the biggest clubs is hundreds of times bigger than any increased ticket revenue; 2) we’ve already seen how Forest spend money wantonly in the transfer market. Maybe buy one fewer goalkeeper next season?

If this was really about competing in the Premier League, presumably those prices would not still stand in the Championship? But of course they do. Supporters have been asked to sign up before they even know which division their team will be in.

The £2m extra revenue could have been accounted for by Forest finishing a place higher in the league, something that could easily have happened if the club had not broken Profitability and Sustainability Rules (PSR). So the fans are stumping up for the incompetence of others.

We’re over-analysing this now, honestly. We – and those supporters – could take Forest’s statement more seriously if it laid out the reality: supply and demand, folks *shrug face*.

The club knew that tickets had been in high demand from the promotion campaign onwards. They knew that supporters who have followed them home and away for years would do their best to scrimp and save and cough up because welcome to football club addiction.

Nottingham Forest are Premier League now (for at least another month) and nothing is more Premier League than squeezing as much money as you can out of your supporters and emotionally blackmailing them into doing it. Clubs are incentivised by PSR to behave like this, but this is still a choice.

Existing season ticket holders, those who traipsed along the Trent and through the Main Stand car park through those inglorious, interminable years, will be priced out. Some have a choice, others don’t. Nottingham is in the top 15 of the most deprived of the 317 districts in England and you can’t just magic extra money. Football is an escape but football is also a luxury. They will be cast aside and they will be missed.

If the idea itself is disappointing, Forest’s delivery of the news was frankly gross. The timing is appalling, given that a relegation dogfight awaits and goodwill amongst supporters is like molten gold. What better strategy than angering the majority at the crucial time?

The initial announcement of increases was posted by @NFFCServices, a secondary arm of the official X account – that tweet provoked the initial outrage. Later in the same day, the official account crowed about meaningless broken records: “in just seven hours, renewals are already up 50 per cent compared to the same point last year”.

What point does this pointed self-congratulation serve, other than to antagonise – deliberately or inadvertently – those who already felt deeply let down by the original news? At best it pitches supporters against each other online, creating an unnecessary battleground that itself threatens to distract from the togetherness required until the end of May.

At worst, it is two fingers to anyone who dared accuse avarice or bungled strategy, including their own season ticket holders. There are people voicing their sadness that they can no longer take their children to watch their football team and having to break the news to them. Even if you believe in your actions, for god’s sake read the room and save the boasting posts for a few days/forever.

For now, anger has runneth over. It will heal in time and surviving relegation would be an effective antidote. Those who are unable to renew their season tickets and the atmosphere may not change noticeably. Some will be distracted by shiny new toys in the summer transfer window. Others will reason that making the highest revenue possible is the only way to operate.

But something here will linger on, the wispy fumes of resentment that tend to leave a stain. Last September, Evangelos Marinakis released a long statement in which he spoke extensively about his dreams for the club. His signing-off message began as follows: “I urge you to embrace the family spirit we are developing as we embark on a new season.”

Running a football club successfully isn’t just about pouring money in. It’s not just about saying the right things nor appointing the right managers. It is about understanding that you are a parent, a guardian, a custodian and a curator.

Marinakis has done many things well and stayed true to his rampant ambition. But this week, Forest’s family spirit has been willfully eroded. They told supporters that they were different when it suited and then they raised prices because “we have to be like other Premier League clubs”. Make that make sense.

That is the cause of the deepest frustration: the realisation, forced upon those fans, that their club is just like every other. They can post on a Saturday teatime and Tuesday night that the supporters were the difference, but everybody does that.

The Steve Cooper era, the significance of which keeps the heady memories fresh, made fans believe in something whole, a club where the component parts hugged one another.

It was a fallacy. Supporters are cash cows to be praised and then cast aside when it suits you, if they cannot pay your charges. Prices go up because you need to spend more money to chase after the money you already spent. “We’re in the Premier League now,” is the catch-all excuse to do what you want to supporters because someone else will always buy the empty seat.