Chelsea and Tottenham embarrass Newcastle United – Bournemouth and Southampton too | OneFootball

I was interested to read the article about Newcastle United home tickets on Saturday.

The article was by Lewis Jones and explained the ongoing problems for Newcastle United members with how the clubs do things.

Amongst the issues he raised, was how late the club left it sell/allocate Newcastle United home tickets to members. Starting the sales/ballot process so late and the very last fans to be allocated tickets, at times not finding out until a week or even less before the Premier League match the tickets were for.

I just wanted to follow up on this and expand it to Newcastle United away tickets, as well as what happens with the home ones.

As no doubt most of you will be aware, away tickets are allocated based on loyalty points for season ticket holders, although this process also often starts far later than it should, for no good reason. Plus, the club then start off the process with season ticket holders needing a certain number of loyalty points, then dropping the number of loyalty points needed day by day. Sometimes this can go on for literally weeks before the final tickets are bought via this system, the Hull City friendly (next Saturday) saw the loyalty points drop process last two weeks. Then after the loyalty points drops have finished, the club then have a ballot each time with a small number of tickets kept back for those who hadn’t had enough loyalty points to buy them.

The whole thing is just madness and no other Premier League club treats its fans like Newcastle United do.

The club has numerous ‘fan engagement’ events but it is difficult not to see this as almost entirely for show, for PR, paying lip service. As nothing/very little changes for the better. There have been many ‘ticketing workshops’ and other fan engagement events, plus the club say they have chats with NUST board members and the club’s own official FAB (Fan Advisory Board) which they are obliged to have due to Premier League roles. Prove you are taking notice of fans etc etc.

Anyway, as I say, nothing ever positive seems to come from these meetings, the senior management at the club and owners, and the ticket office itself, just doing the same old thing.

Whether it is Newcastle United away tickets or home tickets, the same difference, everything left so late. Making it so difficult for fans to plan ahead, especially if needing to book travel and/or accommodation, especially trains which as we all know, aren’t cheap at the best of times but can get ridiculously expensive if you are forced to buy your tickets late on.

So, are Newcastle United really that bad with how they are messing their fans about with tickets? I looked at a few other Premier League clubs to find out, beginning with out first two Premier League opponents in the new season…

Newcastle v Southampton – Saturday 17 August

Southampton started the sales process last week and all season ticket holders and members saw their days for buying tickets for the Newcastle match end on Friday (19 July) and the remaining tickets go on general sale.

With now only 27 days to go, Newcastle United members haven’t even been told about what is happening for the Southampton match. When the sales process will even start, never mind when the final NUFC fans will find out if they have tickets.

On the official NUFC ticketing site, the only info is ‘Fixtures for the new 2024/25 Premier League season will be announced on June 18th, and ticketing details will follow in due course.’

Bournemouth v Newcastle – Sunday 25 August

As for the home tickets, on the official NUFC ticketing site for away tickets, the only info is ‘Fixtures for the new 2024/25 Premier League season will be announced on June 18th, and ticketing details will follow in due course.’

So no news whatsoever for when the process will even start, never mind Newcastle United fans actually knowing if they are getting tickets for Bournemouth.

What about the Bournemouth fans buying tickets for this Newcastle United match. They actually went on sale on 9 July 2024, fully 12 days ago!

Indeed, on the official Bournemouth site, I found this:

As you can see, Bournemouth have already told their fans the start of sales for all 19 home Premier League matches this season!!!

What about other Premier League clubs?

I looked at a couple more.

Tottenham

At Spurs, they put three home matches on sale at the same time. Tomorrow (Monday 22 July), they will be putting the home games against Everton, Arsenal and Brentford on sale, that takes them up to 21 September 2024 when the Brentford match is.

As you can see, later this season, Tottenham will put the January 2025 home match against Newcastle United on sale to their fans on Monday 21 October 2024.

Chelsea

Chelsea are at home for their first match, against Manchester City on Sunday 18 August.

That game is already sold out, with members buying up the available tickets when they were made available on 18 July.

Chelsea’s second home match is against Crystal Palace on Sunday 1 September. Those tickets go on sale to their members on Tuesday (23 July).

So many positive things happening at Newcastle United BUT the ticketing arrangements for home AND away matches are a shambles.