Get ready for the annual ticket outrage

[AlfAndrews]

It's that time of year again ... when we find out just exactly what the AFL thinks of its regular customers. I guess, in a way, it's kind of fortunate that it doesn't affect us Collingwood fans, except those with multiple citizenship like Spidergirl. (Good luck, by the way, Spidergirl)

Just lately, Harry Madden has been talking about government moves to get rid of scalpers. Fat chance. In 1989 the Labor government tried to have scalping outlawed but they got knocked back by the Liberal-dominated upper house. The same thing will happen again. You watch.

Recent newspaper reports have revealed what we've always known ... that the clubs themselves are the worst scalpers of the lot. Geelong is under the pump for brazenly advertising GF packages for $875 or some such figure. All clubs do it, of course. Including Collingwood. The Geelong C.E.O. was quoted as saying that the selling of corporate GF packages was the difference between clubs surviving or going under.

Yes, the clubs are as guilty as sin. But the real blame lies with the Liberal-voting A.F.L. It's their ridiculous system of ticket allocation that makes this gross exploitation possible.

Consider this. The 14 non-competing clubs each get 1500 GF tickets. So, how's your arithmetic? By my calculations that adds up to a staggering 21,000 tickets. Remember that the M.C.C. and A.F.L. members get 48,000 tickets between them so there's only ever 50,000 tickets up for grabs to start with. And a lot of these go to players' relatives and umpires' grandmothers etc. etc.

Now, I ask you this? Why the hell should the non-competing clubs get any tickets at all? The Grand Final should be for the two clubs who are good enough to get there. Stuff the rest.

And why the hell should a club like Geelong (or any club for that matter, including Collingwood) have the right to charge nearly 10 times the official price for a ticket ... even if they do throw in a meal and a bit of entertainment into the package. It's daylight robbery.

So, the clubs rely on this extortion to make ends meet, according to the Geelong CEO. Well, I think that's a fairly damning admission, don't you?

As far as I'm concerned, any club that is incapable of surviving without these sorts of corrupt practices does not deserve to exist.

Of the 50,000 seats outside the AFL and MCC members' enclosures, at least 45,000 should be distributed among the members of the two competing clubs. That would still leave a few for the great aunts and third cousins of the A.F.L. janitor and other hangers-on. But at least it would give club members a finite chance of seeing their team play in a Grand Final.

And if taking away GF tickets from the non-competing clubs means the end of some clubs ... then so be it!!!

This industry has been ripping its best customers off for far too long.

Good luck to the supporters of the two sides next week. Good luck in your quest to get a ticket to the match. The vast majority of you will miss out. In your place will be a stadium full of suits who fundamentally don't give a toss about football or the two clubs involved.

P.S. If I sound a bit like Mike Sheahan in this post there's a good reason for it. Shite Mike, in one of his rare moments of sanity, wrote an article the other day on this very topic. And for once in my life I have to say I agree with him.



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**floreat pica**

[jeff#2001]

Whats this treason i read Mike and Alf have made up.
Alf wots happening mate
Come back Alf
Dont do this grr grr

[Spidergirl]

All i can say is OH MY GOD!!! Yesterday morning i read in the paper that we have to go get a queing ticket at 11:00pm at light tower 2 at the G right. So i thought sweet, i will go wait for the players at the rooms then stroll on over and pick up a ticket. Boy how wrong was I. We get out the door at around 11:30pm and there is a friken line and i dont mean single line i mean a metre wide line stretching right back through the carpark up to the hotels near the G. And surprise surprise it wasnt bloody moving. There were coppers everywhere and ppl basically camping there who had been there since the early morning and u know what the big joke is all this just to get a ticket so u can get in line on Monday morn. So it is lining up to get a ticket to line up. Jesus! I felt like i was in a bloody concentration camp! Anyway i basically just thought i'd be there all night and up until the scummy Carlton fans would start arriving this morning but the line actually moved and i got a ticket to line up on Monday however there is something i dont trust about this new system. I think it is just to stop ppl sleeping out and stop ppl lining chairs up in lines like at Windy Hill. Ah and to make all this worse the poor AFL members were lined up round the other side of the G waiting for hours and hours well after midnight all because the scummy AFL decided to hand out the 1million club members tickets first before they gave the lousy 30 or so AFL members theirs. Who on earth would buy AFL membership. I have spent around 250 to 300 bucks to get 3 club memberships and they have done me just fine. Better than an AFL membership! Go Dees!!! and thank u guys i think i will need some luck for queing up on Monday so that i don't have a heart attack from the AFL!

p.s. u guys missed a good opportunity to kill your great friend Mike Sheehan last night he was standing amongst us at the Melbourne rooms for a good half hour to an hour!

#8 RoCkS
Go RiCkY!

[jeff#2001]

oh shit how sad only if i hadda known
i woulda scud missiled the joint to smithereens !!!!!!!

[London Dave]

Alf, once again spot on.
There is no chance of outlawing scalpers because, as you correctly point out, the scalpers are in fact the clubs. Lets face it, the 'corporate box' is a scalped ticket, which everyone who buys something from that particular corp. pays for, and even if you don't the tax plays on those things mean you end up paying anyway!

Ths finals ticket bollocks has been going on for as long as I can remember, which is a while. As for Mike Sheahans article (which I haven't read), Alf, think about it. Big Mike has more than likely recycled an article from years gone by.


Having said that, if the pies did stun us all and make a GF, I'd try to be there, and if I had to fly half way round the world, I'd have no problem shelling out the dosh for a ticket from wherever. If it was little Timmy from Tomastowns seat, tough titties!

[NICK THE PIE MAN]

God help the AFL the next time Collingwood gets in the grand final and there is not enough tickets for everyone...we will rip down the %&*%$#T% afl headquaters!