chav_corner
11:24 Wed Jul 29
Re: Hammers United update on Season Ticket announcement.
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Dear Members,
As you will be aware, Hammers United met with representatives of the Club last Thursday, where we and others were invited to contribute to return our fans to football for the up-coming season.
This is a very fluid situation, reliant on Chief Medical Officer guidance via the government, which is subject to change dependent on the COVID-19 status the country finds itself in.
Just the second paragraph in of the government guidelines here states that ‘individual groups and individuals entering the premises should not interact with anyone outside of the group they are attending the competition venue with. Those operating competition venues following COVID-19 Secure guidelines should take additional steps to ensure the safety of the public and prevent uncontrolled large gatherings from taking place’.
To achieve just that, before digesting any of the next fifteen pages, will take a tremendous amount of effort, and seems a very tall order.
Two of the other topics raised were season ticket renewals and a process of balloting season ticket holders in effort to make it as fair as possible for all to get a chance to attend next season.
Some good points were raised across the meeting, of which concerns to Hammers United were: -
• The charging of full value for season tickets upfront, in the knowledge that given the current climate, it would be impossible to realise at least 60% of the tickets value.
• An inability to provide viable options for those season ticket holders who currently are/and may over the next twelve months, find themselves in financial difficulty resulting from the post-COVID 19 economic crises.
• An inability to provide a safe zone for our time served older fans who may be concerned with their vulnerability and risk posed should they wish attend in the current climate
• An inability to provide a suitable process by which any season ticket holder who wishes to “opt out” of season 20/21 given the current climate, will have an assurance that they will be able to return without incurring any penalty, in line with the FSA issued guidelines.
Although we do appreciate getting anything done is not easy in this post COVID19 world, disappointingly an announcement was released by the club on Monday that failed to address any of these key points, despite assurances that they would be considered.
Hammers United (also in dialogue with the club on other issues) cited our frustration and requested an urgent audience with the club, suggesting a minimum, token gesture type holding fee, guaranteeing fans who did not want to attend the 20/21 season, an unabated option to renew season tickets the following 21/22 year.
As our members will be aware, communication between us and the club has historically not been great, but with a tide of negative response on social media and swathes of our membership demanding we protest at the first game of the season, we were pleased that the clubs SLO (who to his credit was on holiday with his family) facilitated calls with senior members of the clubs management team with whom we once more raised our members concerns.
The club did recognise that it’s messaging to our supporters here wasn’t great, and confirmed it was now working on an option three, which was explained to us, and that it was also working towards further options regarding a provision for our elderly fans and those demonstrably impacted financially by the crisis as per our previous suggestions.
We were advised that those further options would not be explored in time to make the cut for the option three release.
The Hammers United advice to the club was clear in that option three is obviously an improvement on no option, but given that it is was being issued belatedly, would most likely not resonate well with the fan base, and without the other options, really doesn’t go as far as it should, all at a time when supporter satisfaction sits at an all-time-low under the stewardship of the current regime.
We expect an update on progress on the remaining options by the end of the week and as always will keep you updated.
HU Committee.www.hammersunited.com
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