Meeting between Watford Supporters’ Trustand Watford FC.
23rd June 2016
Present
WFC – Richard Walker, Head of Supporter Communication and Sales; GlynnEvans, Director of Operations and Katie Wareham, Head of Finance.
WST – Peter Brown, Geoff Seal and John Fawell
We discussed a range of issues from Finance to the issue of standing and ticket pricing.
The club is now on a commercially sound footing with increased turnover, particularly from increased non-ticket revenues that include hospitality on match days. The club indicated that it would not have a problem with the FFP rules and also said that there would be a financial profit on the season even allowing for increased player costs. With the survival of the first season the club now are in a more secure position should it be relegated through the increased 3 year parachute payments that they would be entitled to.
The capacity of the ground is just over 21,000 and 14,500 season tickets have been sold to the time of the meeting. This is an increase on the previous season. The club are required to make 5% of tickets available for match by match purchases. The club are close to selling out but there are no immediate plans for any significant further expansion. Wheelchair and disabled places remain difficult mostly due to the older design of the stadium but the club says that it is continually trying to improve things. When the North East corner is finished this will provide a small number of additional wheelchair places along with a few restricted view seats as well as the club shop.
The Club is aware of the problem of disabled parking but this has been made worse by the Premier League requirements for media access. They are negotiating for space with the hospital and hopefully that will provide a long-term solution. The Club is committed to working towards published Accessibilty guidelinesand Dave Messenger is working with ENABLES on disabled access issues.
In terms of away tickets the Club has to take a decision as to how much it is prepared to risk when tickets remain unsold. This is exacerbated by changes to scheduled match days for TV. It does mean that some fans will be disappointed for some away matches if the club feel that they are not prepared to take the risk of significant numbers of unsold tickets for some away games, a cost which is a loss to the club. The new away ticket pricing agreement for the PL will make this easier. The Club supported the Premier League cap on away ticket prices and take the view, along with many other clubs, that the atmosphere is improved by the presence of away fans and that is one of the selling points for the TV product.
A new membership scheme is to be introduced for the start of the 2017/18 season that is expected to clarify a number of issues for ticket buying. At the time they were still working on possible changes to the purchase scheme for away tickets for next season. The ticket purchasing schemes are evolving as the club becomes used to the changing demand for tickets in the PL.
The Club is still considering its matchday pricing structure for home supporters, with categorisation of games a possibility The Premier League mandate is to sell out as far as is possible.
The plan is to introduce a ticket exchange system for next season by which season ticket holders who are unable to attend a game can inform the club and if those tickets can be resold a proportion of the selling price, allowing for club costs, will be credited to the holder’s account to be set against season ticket purchase for the following season.
The new hospitality areas will be ‘The View’ (Floor 1) and ‘The Gallery’ (Floor 2).. So far the take up has been good. The intention is eventually to convert the area where the old 1881 club was into a sports bar for which access will be to a limited number of customers who have paid a membership fee. This will have food and drink for purchase. Season ticket holders will receive an offer to join by email within the month ahead.
Other ground issues were discussed. The screen in the north east corner will be replaced by one which has the same aspect ratio as the new screen in the south-east corner.
The new pitch is seeded and growing, although the weather has not been particularly helpful so far with little sunshine.
A new and improved website is to be launched for the start of this season that the Club feel will be much better than the existing website.
The issue of flares and fireworks was again discussed. The club are concerned about this because they are both illegal and dangerous and the club could suffer if they continue. That could mean tighter security and longer delays getting into the ground and in terms of away games could result in a reduced away ticket allocation by other clubs.
We asked the Club about the issue of the complexity of player registration with loans in and out of the club. We were assured that all players are properly registered with the Premier League and the Club continues to stay within the rules. There is no third party ownership, which is, of course, illegal.