Saints head up to Aston Villa tonight and Saints fans face paying £41 for the priviledge however Villa are blatantly manipulating the rules of away fan ticket prices.

Tickets for the match at Aston Villa are available in all sections for tonights match, however most Aston Villa fans will not be paying the same price as Saints supporters unless they are sitting in a Premium central stand seat.

As many will know home clubs have to charge away supporters the same price as home fans pay for a similar seat, most clubs including Saints do this fairly, away fans at St Mary's pay the same as Saints fans sitting in th other half of the Northam and indeed for Saints fans sitting in the Chapel at the other end of the ground, but this is where the similarities between Saints and Villa end and the Midland's club are playing the system so that they can charge away fans top dollar.

If you want the best ticket in the house tonight at Villa Park in the Centre of the Trinity Road Stand then its £42 only £1 more than a ticket in the away section which is in the corner of the Doug Ellis stand opposite, so Saints supporters sitting in the lower tier of this stand will find themselves paying only £1 less than for virtually the best seat in the house, for a ticket which is at pitch level in the corner.

So how are Aston Villa getting awa with this ? well the secret lies in the fact that usually Villa Park is well below capacity, although they had a virtual full house for the visit of Arsenal, apart from that the second highest crowd is the 32k that were there for the Manchester City game.

This means that they can afford to overprice the Doug Ellis stand on a single game basis, for a season ticket holder it works out at only £28.68 a game, but an individual ticket is £41 for the likes of Saints.

This means that it will price out most Villa fans for single matches, although they have plenty of choice elsewhere in the ground starting at £25 up to the aforementioned £42 best seat and with 10,000 spare tickets to chose from most games, Villa fans are not going to be too bothered about sitting in the Doug Ellis stand.

But away fans do not have that choice, so it means that Villa can completely fleece visiting supporters and not break any rules as the single game price in that stand is the same for the home fans.

It is within the Premier League regulations but totally and morally wrong otherwise.

Of course Saints have no choice but to bite the bullet, in times where organisations like the Football Supporters Federation are trying to persuade clubs to reduce ticket prices for travelling fans with reciprocal agreements etc, this is just a case of a club trying to squeeze money out of the fans of other clubs because they can.

Photo: Action Images

Jesus_02 added 13:42 - Nov 24 Villa are not the only ones to mess away support around to get more money. Other teams put away support at the halfway line for the same reasons. This gets the club a little bit extra revenue but also puts off way support and diminishes atmosphere. FA should just make a rule to say that away tickets should be in line with the cheapest regardless of where they are situated. Atmosphere is what sells the English Football, whatever happens that needs to be protected.

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SaintNick added 13:55 - Nov 24 Not sure that any club has put fans on the half way line, most are either in the corner behind the goal or in the corner on the side. But at least if they were getting a seat on the half way line they would be getting a ticket worth that amount so to speak, this is just a blatant attempt to overprice an area of the ground compared with other areas
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darthvader added 14:12 - Nov 24 They do do amazing meat and potatoe pies though . but yea it stinks that we get fleeced in this way . I think if tickets were capped at 25 ,every ground would be full , the only problem with that is demand would outstrip supply. So unless you are quick off the mark or have a season ticket ,you lose out
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densham41 added 14:22 - Nov 24 On a positive note, Arsenal are charging us £26. You have to give them credit on this one.
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TimSaint added 14:32 - Nov 24 I wrote a report from 2 seasons ago, having been to our 1-0 victory, courtesey of a SRL pen. I went with 2 Villa fans and we sat in the North Stand, next to the away fans and I had a similar view to that of many Saints fans. That ends the similarities, as i paid £21 for the ticket and my fellow Saints, just across the barrier from me had to pay £35. Maybe Villa see us as a gold game / top bracket game, due to our success so far this season ? The easy solution will be to charge Villa fans £41 per ticket, but perhaps the best thing from a fans perspective would be for the 2 clubs should get together and agree prices for the corresponding fixtures next season. Not going to the game tonight, as using my last vacation to go to the cup game instead. Will obviously be hoping for another good performance on the road and a similar, if not better result than last time I was at Villa Park.

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villafaninpeace added 14:59 - Nov 24 anyone going to villa park these days are getting fleeced, cus they sure are not serving up football. There are many villa fans admiring the set up at Southampton and whilst we still consider ourselves a big club our present position might suggest otherwise Good luck tonight hope you win and put another nail in our managers coffin
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davenbennett added 15:05 - Nov 24 I would have gone, but changed to Sky. Stayed with a mate over the weekend in Stourbridge and the idea was to go and see Robert Plant at Wolves Civic Friday, which we did. Then go to Villa V Saints on Sat, which we didn't due to Sky. Problem is with tickets and process in general we think it all should be "fair". We live in a capitalist world and the concept of "fair" does not compute for the "bottom line". Clubs pay players £100+K a week, but then do not pay staff Living Wage. So, if away fans have to pay more for similar ticket, then seen as "good business", and a pat on the back for the person who arranged the fiddle around the rules.

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SanMarco added 15:41 - Nov 24 Agree with you davenbennett. Given the corporate takeover of 'UK PLC' I am not sure that this counts as a 'big' con. The bankers sucked as nearly dry and now NHS contracts are being handed out to the likes of G4S and Serco etc etc. Nevertheless football will eventually come to its bubble bursting moment. They can't keep squeezing us - eventually the pips will squeak. I predict that football will have a similar crisis to the 2008 financial one within the next 10 years. Wouldn't surprise me if it didn't result in a 'free market' government using tax payers' money to subsidise footballers' wages...

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