There will be swathes of empty seats at Wembley Stadium today, thousands of them scattered around a monolithic arena that cost £800million to construct.
The price the Football Association paid for this is all too apparent. It is FA Cup semi-final weekend, a compelling juncture in any season, and yet the image of the day presented to the world when Wigan face Millwall today threatens to be one of apathy and disinterest when it comes to the grand, old competition.
The red, plastic spaces in the stands will shout out a message of decline. We will wonder again why the executive tiers are so sparsely occupied and how it takes people in the posh seats around the tunnel quite so long to make it back from their half-time nosebag to watch the game they are supposedly there to see.
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The talk will be of a drastic slump in the FA Cup’s lure, lumped in with Wigan’s lack of pulling power. But instead of dwelling on the embarrassment and asking why ‘only’ 20,000 or so Wigan fans have made the trip, we should marvel at the fact that so many even bother.
Tickets were available in the £30 to £50 price range, which is not bad value in comparative terms. Add that Wigan’s home gate averages around 18,000 and it is certainly no mean feat for in excess of 20,000 to land in London.
Especially if we add the cost of bringing the family, extortionate petrol prices for that 420-mile round trip, plus food and parking in a location as close as possible to Wembley - such as Birmingham. The costs soon mount.
The alternative is to endure the cost of a train from Wigan. Not the whole train, although sometimes it feels like it, just the part of the carriage you get to stand in because the seats are full.
On top of the journey, this year supporters will also have to allocate cash for a hotel, since the 5.15pm kick-off ensures the last train back departs from Euston before fans can reach the station.
It’s a common source of misery for travelling fans. Plotting the most cost-effective route is so complex it can often be useful to rely on the expertise of ticket office staff.
ME: Can I buy a return train ticket to London on Saturday, please?
AGENT: No, not on a Saturday.
ME: Why?
AGENT: There’s a premium for travelling at peak-off-peak times, which is any time during a day of the week that contains two vowels or more. Besides, there’s only one train and it’s sold out.
ME: So how do I get there?
AGENT: You can take the Friday train, which comes back on Sunday. This is our Classic Service, which means there is no buffet car or working toilet on board. It goes via Penzance due to engineering works. But with our Wembley Super-Saver package you stay at a luxury two-star hotel and receive a complimentary upgrade to a room next to a malfunctioning ice machine. All for £1,000 - plus match ticket.
ME: Can you book me a one-way trip to Miami instead?
En route: Wigan players await the train to London for the big match DM.has('rcp',"twitter"); Loading tweets...Every year we do this. Every year we question the fairness of dragging the fans of one Northern club down to London for a semi-final, when they face an even more expensive return trip for the final in a few weeks’ time should they win.
FA chairman David Bernstein insisted: ‘It’s progress. Wembley is too great a venue to be used occasionally.’
What he means is that it’s ‘too great’ a cost for the FA to bear, without doing all they possibly can to extract money out of the nation’s fans, short of removing gold fillings at the turnstiles.
In the past, Villa Park would have hosted this game. And, instead of travelling only 16 miles across town, Millwall would have met Wigan halfway, the stadium would have been packed and the allure and prestige of reaching an FA Cup final at Wembley Stadium would have been preserved.
The FA are doing their best to plug some of the gaps by passing the tickets on to military personnel and offering ‘neutrals’ the chance to buy their way in. But fans are not the priority any more. Business is. Supporters are just decoration.
With thousands of corporate seats already pre-sold at the new stadium, including those with the best locations on 10-year licences, the reserved sections effectively generate enough of the ground’s total revenue to mean the empty seats aren’t very important.
Even if every Wigan fan boycotted Wembley today, the mathematics of the business would mean it would still be more cost-effective to stay at Wembley than move the game to Villa’s ground.
I believe it is what’s known as ‘the magic of the cup’ these days.
Shebby Singh is the laughably entitled global adviser of Blackburn Rovers.
In his time, the club plummeted out of the Premier League, are currently careering headlong towards relegation out of the Championship, have gone through four managers this season alone and there is speculation the current caretaker boss is about to get the boot, too. So my question is this.
What sort of advice does Singh provide? How does he help the shambolic Venky’s?
I’d really love to know, Mr Singh, so get in touch. Tell me. At the moment, you appear to be the sort of driving instructor who would ‘advise’ their pupil to drive straight into a wall.
Hot air from QatarNot a week goes by without some erroneous complaint about perceived ‘racism’ in football.
The latest popped up on the Twitter feed of Sheik Abdullah bin Nasser Al Thani, the owner and president of the Spanish club Malaga.
Gutting: Malaga's Martin Demichelis holds his head in his hands after defeat in the Champions LeagueHaving seen his side undone in the Champions League by a poor offside decision in Dortmund, Al Thani decided this wasn’t due to a lousy linesman, but ‘racism’.
‘We were targeted by a corrupt UEFA based on racism,’ he cried.
I’m not entirely sure how racism impacts on the daily life of Al Thani, who is a member of the Qatari royal family and a billionaire.
Nor am I sure how Qatari interests in football suffer by discrimination, since they sponsor FC Barcelona, own Paris Saint-Germain and have a World Cup finals on the way.
Tiny Qatar has the richest population in the world. Their wealth is built on resources of natural gas. It seems Al Thani generates some of that resource every time he opens his mouth.
Let's play spot the penalty plonkerThere are other certainties in life beyond death and taxes. To the list you can add the inescapable truth that when a player casually lollops up to take a penalty, running as if he were a new-born giraffe instead of a professional athlete, disaster inevitably follows.
If that wobbling, jellyboned individual also happens to be Emmanuel Adebayor, abandon all hope.
Swing and a miss: Emmanuel Adebayor put his penalty over the bar against Basle Swing and a miss: Emmanuel Adebayor put his penalty over the bar against BasleGoal-line technology is to be brought in for the new season, with the Hawk-Eye system being introduced at a cost to the Premier League of around £5million.
The measure is overdue. Football has been positively Amish when it comes to embracing gadgetry used by other sports.
To me a decade ago, it smacked of a higher grade of justice for the richest clubs and the usual muddle for the rest.
But with television being the true powerbroker in the game and every angle already covered in HD, 3D and slow-mo, referees needed help.
But rather than have a buzzer recording when a ball crossed the line, wouldn’t it have been easier for a fourth official to review the television coverage Sky Sports and BT Sport will provide in the new season? We’re headed down the instant TV replay road now, anyway.
Not before time: Frank Lampard was denied a goal in the World Cup against Germany Hillsborough also needs respectWhen you think about it, there is no more reason for a minute’s silence to be held in honour of Baroness Thatcher at a football ground than there is at your nearest shopping centre, cinema or fast-food chain.
It is a straightforward process to argue that spectators at sporting events have less reason to bow their heads and politely stare quietly down at the discarded crisp packets under their feet than the denizens elbowing their way through IKEA.
But the clamour for some kind of collective display of grief is always lumped on Wembley Stadium, or some other sports arena.
Admission: Dave Whelan conceded a minute's silence for Margaret Thatcher would be spoiledLeader: Former Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher died aged 87
Wigan Athletic chairman Dave Whelan led the cries. So he came into a radio studio this week to explain why he wanted the FA to order a silent tribute to Thatcher.
Whelan was polite and measured, but we were only a question or two into our conversation when he conceded the solemn moment he was seeking would be despoiled by jeers and boos. Even Whelan added that he’d ‘rather not see that’. End of debate.
Whelan argued the passing of any Prime Minister should be accorded this kind of respect. The trouble is Thatcher wasn’t just any Prime Minister. Her legacy is immense, divisive, complicated and tougher to sort through than John McCririck’s laundry basket.
When it came to sport, however, her position is relatively simple. She did not like it, especially football. She did not understand it. She sought to control it in ways that would have been disastrous had they been implemented, such as ID cards.
Most significantly, she was Prime Minister when the Government presided over one of the most scandalous cover-ups in history.
South Yorkshire Police lied, smeared the residents of a city and betrayed the families and friends of 96 people killed at Hillsborough.
This weekend is the 24th anniversary of that terrible tragedy and many with a genuine grievance would have interpreted a minute’s silence for Thatcher as a sign of disrespect.
Chaos: It will be 24 years since the Hillsborough Disaster this weekendCover up: Thatcher was Prime Minister when the police tried to smear the residents of Liverpool
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