Price Freeze ?

I no my view will not be popular but I actually think compared to what our local rivals who are currently in division one then our tickets come in cheap, I intend renewing as always & simply buying a season ticket is the cheapest option available for me, I understand for some under the current financial problems everyone are facing that paying out for a season ticket is a none starter but the state of the country is not the clubs fault & the prices to me are very reasonable ,

 

Reasonable in isolation? Maybe. Falsely advertised? For the fourth season in a row definitely

 

I completely agree with you about the prices. I've felt for some time that they are too cheap, certainly at Championship level. Obviously the external environment has been declining for a few years and affordability will become more of an issue for larger parts of the fan base.

I don't think it's the price that people necessarily have the issue with. Just very poor comms, tone and obviously the backdrop of mistrust against CEO and ownership, as well as the attrition of simply being a fan of a football club and not a business entity deploying a failing strategy.

 

To be honest , I have plenty of beefs with our owners & the way the club is being run , however, despite the politics around the way they are being marketed I really do not care, I am bothered about what it is going to cost , that is what matters to me & as I say I believe the prices are very fair & to me it is the cheapest way to watch my team & therefore I have no problem what so ever renewing .

 

100% this. Trust in the club is at absolute rock bottom. Having been told in a press release a few days ago that prices have been frozen, anyone renewing who checks back will discover that they're being asked to pay £50 more than last season for pretty much the certainty of League One football. The price increase (14.7% to 21.2% on an adult early bird renewal, depending on where you sit) is something that people can decide whether or not they're happy to live with it, and arguably our overall price structure will still look competitive compared to other League One clubs. However, no-one rational is going to view this as a price freeze, so attempting to call it one and creating a justification for this based on cost of living increases just comes across as completely disingenuous.

Its very simple. Announcing a price freeze implies that I will pay the same as I did last season. If there's no option for me to do this when the options go live then I'm going to feel pretty pissed off about being told otherwise. This is a basic failure in expectation management, and one that was easily avoidable.

 

So essentially prices have been frozen at the pre Covid rate?

 

https://www.barnsleychronicle.com/a...5YLWidW7e81zABGMqqUDKrgZhQmGOVVqtrCXEz-BuOyd8

 

To be fair that statement fills me full of confidence.

 

I can't help feeling there's a few things in there that instantly make you think 'hmmmmm'

" I have got hundreds and hundreds of letters – and I answer almost every one " - there have been plenty of cases on social media (inc here) where that is simply not the case. It may have improved during his tenure?

"But I feel the club is moving forward, disregarding the results." - Very strange. No improvement in matchday experiences, obvious early season issues in staff retention. I have a mate on the board at Guiseley. Great little club that really tries. They were pushing for League football a few seasons back - now about to drop into the 7th tier. A great matchday experience, but moving forward? No. Us neither

"letters to EFL" etc ........ doesn't sit easy with me. Yes, all teams should play on a level playing field, but it is almost like part of our business plan is watching other teams business plans. Own house in order first please, including how the club is funded.

"everyone knows we are not afraid of the protests" - Confrontational. Pure and simple

"I will answer as many questions as I can about the period I have been here." - bold text tells you all you need to know about the upcoming Q&A

"What that valuation is, you will have to ask them." - We can't. They don't want to engage. They are invisible. They know the consequence of engaging.

Kaiserslautern. "As far as I know, it won’t have any impact" - " I don’t get involved and don’t spend much time thinking about it." - I refuse to believe he doesn't know more. Even if it is as simple as player movement between the two clubs, a l Ejsborg

Court battle: "I know as little as you. I hope it gets resolved for the best of the club but I stay out of it " - whilst respecting his right not to divulge, I simply refuse to believe he knows nowt.

"El-Ahmad also said he had no more information to provide on the £750,000 paid by the club rather than owners" - Again, just say you cannot commentate on a legal matter. And tell us when we can expect the owners to engage?

"The matchday experience is not great" - Still. 4 years after the initial manifesto promise. I tahnk him for not denying it though.

Kane: "But then you don’t know what will happen during the summer." - But I'm sure he has a good idea. Value will be good after a season in a winning side, with a smile on his face, and a POTY imminent. He won't be starting in L1 for the reds.

 

This thread for me is a good example of where our owners have got it wrong.
Technically they are correct the price has not gone up (based on full price last season), but in reality it has gone up as people are spending more.

You would have thought by now that they would have learnt instead of trying to hide behind a technicality be more open and straight with the communication.

 

This one irritated me when I read it, as I think the only one's answered are physical letters sent into the club.

I cancelled my Centenary Society membership earlier in the year, stating that I could no longer put funds into the club until such time as the £750k was reimbursed to the club. I asked that the email be forwarded to Khaled for visibility, and Beth replied to confirm that this had been done.

Nil, zip, nada in terms of any response or acknowledgement from him about the concerns raised.

At the time, I wasn't too concerned as I didn't necessarily expect to get a response, but it winds me up a bit to then see him making comments like this when the BBS has seen several examples during the season of a similar experience. I know he did correct one oversight with (from memory) Farnham Red's mother after the Garrison event so he does make some effort in this regard. However, I suspect we're some way short of the near 100% response rate he implies.

Separately, I agree with you that he's already set out the caveats in the above that would suggest the Q&A next week is a pretty pointless exercise for me to worry about. He's already stonewalled the £750k/£2.75m issue, the legal case, and caveated things to the time he's been here only. That doesn't leave much room for relevant questions from me as a non-renewing ST holder.

 

I would love for him to go in to detail as to why he thinks that because I think the opposite. We have had staff shortages. We moved loyal fans out of the west stand which looked with lots of big away followings coming soon that it was done to move the stewards to there to accept more. Catering is back in house but the only change is a chicken flatbread. The fan zone only came back last weekend and people were expected to stand in the cold as they didn't have chairs. The court case between owners doesn't seem to be any nearer being resolved. We've lots of players who have contracts we've allowed to run down such as Wolfe and then next season being the last for too many key players. We've had two awful head coach appointments. We've had what must be a record amount of training ground injuries which questions WTF they do in training. We've announced a price freeze on season tickets which isn't true especially when you no longer get a replica shirt which is nearly another fifty quid on top. We have parking issues at the ground which has annoyed fans. The gate at the bottom of the Ponte car park is always shut so you've hundreds of fans queuing to get through the little side gate by the burger van. There is no traffic safety down at Oakwell Lane which is a death trap waiting to happen.

 

Yeah.... but apart from that....

 

It will only be a pointless exercise if all the questions are on the topics that he's already been clear that he won't answer questions about, and when it comes to the court case, nor should he. But next month, there'll be plenty of questions that can be put to him on what will be happening in the future, rather than the past, particularly given relegation will be confirmed. Things like;
- He mentioned talks with the council about a permanent fan zone. What progress has been made? When is he next meeting with them? What needs to happen for that development to happen?
- How are season ticket sales going, against any forecasts they made?
- What effect does that have on the plan for League 1?
- When will review of coaching staff be complete?
- (I'm amazed this hasn't been asked already) How long is Poya's contract?
- How many players have expressed a desire to leave?

Am sure there'll be plenty others, but that is off the top of my head.

Of course, if your decision to renew is based on the 750k, and potential 2.75m, that is entirely understandable. But I can understand why Khaled isn't discussing that. Neither did Murphy, and we're hearing nothing from Conway, Lee, or the Crynes for that matter either. They seem happy enough to let Khaled take the bullets.

 

That post from Andy Mac is exactly why I'm not renewing.

Basically, Khaled just shrugs and says nowt to do wi me.

 

But then some people will praise him for having the ****** to meet and engage with the fans

 

The Q&A is next week, not next month though.

 

If he acknowledges almost every email why did he say to gally that he gets too many emails so can't read them all so the best way to contact him was via a 19th century letter?

If they discussed lowering prices AND he acknowledges that less people will renew I. League one then How the hell did he come to the decision not to lower prices?

Incompetent at best

 

My bad. Misread it. I still think it would benefit from the questions being about his plans, rather than events that happened before he arrived though.