Price of Football

Jeremy Corbyn has spoken of his admiration for the German model of football fan club ownership as he went into detail about Labour’s plans to give supporters influence over how their teams are run.

Labour had previously committed to ensuring that the Premier League invests 5% of its income from television rights in the grassroots game and enforcing legislation designed to stop ticket tout websites inflating prices.

But the party’s leader used a podcast interview with When Saturday Comes to put pressure on Premier League clubs to do more about high ticket prices, which he says are pricing out working-class communities, and supporting grass roots football.

“I get very frustrated about the cost of football, the cost of going to matches, the cost of season tickets and the way in which working-class communities are almost priced out of it, particularly in the Premier League clubs,” said Corbyn, an Arsenal fan.

“I understand the issues of players’ wages and the costs involved. But we want 5% of Premier League income to be spent on lower division football, so not Championship, League One and League Two but lower than that: grassroots football.”

Corbyn also said fans’ voices needed to be heard on club boards, adding that Labour would make provision for registered fans’ organisations to elect two directors for every club.