Portsmouth Facing Ticket Dilemma For The Southampton Game Saturday, 1st Nov 2025 09:38 Portsmouth fans are still smarting about the ticket prices that they had to pay when they visited St Mary's in September, now their club has to decide their own pricing for the home game in January and whether they penalise their own support. The Portsmouth newspaper The News is carrying a story about ticket prices for the January derby with Saints at Fratton Park. They reveal that Portsmouth FC are in a little bit of a dilemma for this fixtures, it seems that their was some friction between the clubs back in September regarding ticket prices for the away fans. The News of course is biased towards its local football club and know that any story slagging off Saints will put them in a good light, therefore they report that Saints had just slapped an extra £10 on tickets for Pompey fans randomly, they fail to point out that Southampton FC operate a tiered pricing system and thus this was not some random profit making scheme, but due to the fact that as it was back in previous meetings 15 -20 years ago, this was a Category A game, the highest rating and in that perspective £10 higher than if hit had been a Category C fixture.
Pompey themselves do not offer a tiered system for different clubs, they charge £30 a game for Adults in all areas apart from the centre blocks of the two side stands where it is £33. The News also reveal that Southampton FC turned down a reciprocal ticket arrangement where we would reduce our prices to £30 for Pompey fans and we would pay £30 in the return fixture, I would have hoped that Saints would have agreed that, but they chose not to. So Pompey are under pressure from their own fans as to what we will pay, as it stands by League rules they have to charge away fans, what they charge their own fans in a similar seat, so that is £30, but the fans are demanding blood and want them to charge us what they were charged at St Mary's. Pompey can do that, but only if they amend the admission price for their own supporters, that means putting up the price for fans in the Fratton End & the flanks of the side stands who but individual match tickets on the day, which according to the article will be about 3,000 people.
In response to questions at a recent fans forum about admission prices and the cost of food & drink at the derby in January, Portsmouth FC chief commercial officer Mark Judges said there would be implications for certain home fans if they were to increase ticket prices for Saints fans. "For ticket prices, league regulations require all clubs to submit their prices to the EFL before the fixtures come out. In recent history, we have not categorised matches, although most clubs do. "This season, we submitted various price sets before the season began – that gives us flexibility for conversations such as this. "It’s important to remember that whatever we charge away supporters, we have to charge home supporters in like-for-like seating. So, whatever their fans are charged in the Milton End, we’ll need to charge to Portsmouth supporters in the Fratton End and wings of the North and South. "Whatever decision we make will have a material impact on individual match-day supporters in the home end. It will impact around 3,000 Portsmouth supporters, many of those will be big fans who are on the season ticket waiting list, or perhaps can’t afford a season ticket, but will be keen to go. "We endeavour to set what we believe to be fair prices across the stadium in our food and beverage kiosks – we have no intention of raising food and drink prices for this fixture." So it will be interesting what Pompey do for this fixture, do they charge the £30 that they will be charge every other club this season and accept that Southampton have a different structure and that back in September Saints supporters in the same position were paying exactly the same as Portsmouth fans on that day. Or do they penalise 3,000 of their own fans so they can penalise 2,700 Saints supporters ? The reality is that Pompey fans will pay more than £30 at a number of away games this season, as we will do, but are they going to take action of the clubs that do charge them more such as QPR where we will pay £39 for our upcoming game there and Pompey fans will probably pay something similar, I would say no, if QPR charge Pompey £39, Pompey fans won't be making a fuss about it as they are now, they will just accept it and get on with things, as we all have to do.
So this has no winners whatever the decision made by PFC, in truth Saints have not come out of this well as they refused a reciprocal pricing deal, but now Portsmouth FC have come out of it even worse as they are pandering to the "Hate Scum" element in their fan base and trying to make us the bad boys. They could have kept the moral high ground on this one and charge £30 and made themselves look the heroes of the situation, for not charging hard up football fans more money, made themselves look the bigger man so to speak, than that lot up the road. But they haven't done that, they have tried to make themselves look good in their own supporters eyes for trying to "Give it to those hated Scummers" Pompey fans are also not only demanding higher ticket prices for us, but higher food & drink prices for us on the day, they take no account that they again paid exactly the same price as we did not only for tickets but food & drink, yes I agree it is overpriced and extortionate, but it what we paid. So soon we will find out on the ticket prices whether Portsmouth FC will decide two wrongs make a right and cut its nose off to spite its face, or whether they will do the right thing. All Photos Via Reuters Please report offensive, libellous or inappropriate posts by using the links provided.
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