Manchester City have increased the price of their season tickets by three per cent despite insisting they are committed to affordable ticketing.
The most expensive ticket to watch the domestic treble winners will set you back £950, while the cheapest comes in at £325, as fans were sent packs for their 2019/20 season ticket card renewal on Thursday morning.
The package sent to supporters read: “After another fantastic season for the boys in blue, you can make sure you’re there for all the action in 2019/20 by securing your Seasoncard today.”
It means the most expensive season tickets have risen from £920 to £940, with City saying the rise is due to inflation and matchday operations costs.
Compare that to prices when watching City as champions in the 2012/13 season, the most expensive seats in the stadium were £750, meaning they have risen £200 in five years.
The move has angered fans, who feel they are being exploited by the club, despite being owned by one of the wealthiest men in the world.
Sheikh Mansour, brought the club in August 2008 and has an individual net worth of around £17billion.
City potentially face a ban from the Champions League after a UEFA investigation into an alleged £60million deception but the chairman, Khaldoon Al-Mubarak, launched a huge defence of the club’s spending and accused LaLiga president Javier Tebas of ‘hypocrisy’.
Tebas, said last week that City were damaging European football by driving up player prices with their ‘state sponsored’ cash reserves.
However, Al-Mubarak responded to Tebas’ accusations, telling CityTV: “He talks about how we distorted the market? There is a hypocrisy in this statement that is ironic.
“Number one, let’s look at the Spanish league, the time of breaking records on player acquisitions. I mean, who started that?
“Let’s go back to the world records, [Luis] Figo, [Zinedine] Zidane. These huge jumps in these transfers, where did they happen?
“You have to look back at the history of LaLiga, a league dominated by two clubs, and Mr Tebas should look back at the history of that league and distortion that has happened throughout the ages.”