Gao Shen actually underestimated the enthusiasm of Leeds United fans.
When Fernando Lucas officially launched the twenty-year package buyback plan, the vast majority of fans who held this package were very supportive of it, especially when compared to Lucas, Eddie Gray and others.
After talking about it, they all felt that this would be beneficial to the long-term development of the club, so they all agreed very much.
The vast majority of people stated on the spot that they would not take advantage of the club. They had watched seven seasons of games, and the club would just refund the remaining money after deducting the corresponding season ticket prices.
For the remaining small part, after learning that the club was willing to return it at the original price, they basically agreed on the spot.
In the end, the whole thing was handled extremely smoothly.
In fact, it's not surprising when you think about it. In 2004, he was willing to spend such a large amount of money to support Leeds United, saying that he valued the season tickets for the next twenty years, but in fact everyone knew that this money could be wasted at any time.
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These fans all have a typical characteristic, that is, they are from a wealthy family, not short of money, and at the same time they are extremely loyal to Leeds United.
Fernando Lucas also handled the situation very appropriately, giving away a lot of gifts and taking good care of the feelings of every loyal fan, making them all feel the huge difference between the new management and the past.
At the same time, Lucas quickly invited major fan organizations and media to a meeting at Elland Road Stadium to thank this group of loyal Leeds United fans for their support and announced the club's major decision on ticketing.
These five to six hundred die-hard fans are very generous, and the club will not be stingy.
The team promised that in the next three years, even if the team is promoted to the Premier League, the price of game tickets will never be increased.
This is definitely a conscientious policy.
What do you think?
The current average season ticket price of Leeds United is 349 pounds. If this price is placed in the Premier League, it will definitely rank almost at the bottom.
Not to mention anything else, after Norwich City were promoted to the Premier League this season, the season ticket price immediately rose to 471 pounds, Swansea also rose to 427 pounds, and Queens Park Rangers even more
Soared by 10% to 499 pounds.
If Leeds United really succeeds in reaching the Premier League, this promise will be enough to benefit all Leeds United fans.
Even if they fail to reach the Premier League and stay in the Championship, the price of this kind of season ticket can only be regarded as mid-range in the Championship.
But Leeds United's move goes beyond that.
Lucas also announced that from now on, he will officially launch a campaign to give back to season ticket fans. All Leeds United season ticket holders will receive up to 50% of their purchases back if the team succeeds in reaching the Premier League this season.
Ticket amount.
But the returned money can only be used to purchase season tickets and stadium expenses for next season.
This immediately caused shock once again among the media and representatives of fan organizations at the scene.
Although the specific details have not yet been released, they have already felt the decision-making courage of the new management.
Promising not to increase prices for three years is outrageous enough, but now they want to return it?
Although there is a limit on the refund amount, it’s still very delicious, okay?
Now that you’ve got this, what are you waiting for for the free ticket promotion?
The fan representatives at the scene reacted extremely enthusiastically to this, and raised various detailed issues on the spot, including season ticket tiers, return ratios, etc.
In fact, the Leeds United team has also carefully designed this aspect.
For example, season tickets are divided into three tiers abc. The highest tier has the highest price, but also the largest return ratio, because the quantity of this tier is small; and by analogy, the return ratio of the highest tier C is only 30%.
But it’s fascinating enough!
In England, watching football is a necessity, and fans have endured high ticket prices for a long time.
Just like Manchester United, since it was acquired by the Glazer family, the price of season tickets and individual tickets has been the same. Can you tolerate it?
But what if I can no longer bear it?
Manchester United still sells 50,000 season tickets every year, easily pocketing nearly 30 million pounds.
Like Leeds United, they not only promised not to increase the price, but also gave back to the fans after reaching the Premier League. This is simply a huge conscience, right?
After the Yorkshire Post reported and interpreted it, a Leeds United season ticket sales storm immediately started in Yorkshire.
More than 2,000 season tickets were sold on the first day. Subsequently, as season ticket sales became more and more popular, more and more Leeds United fans joined in. At the peak, 5,000 season tickets were sold in one day.
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Half a month later, when more and more fans reacted, they found that Leeds United's season tickets had been sold out.
The Elland Road Stadium, which can accommodate up to 39,000 people, finally sold 25,000 season tickets, far exceeding the expectations of Fernando Lucas and others.
Later, an additional 5,000 season tickets had to be purchased, but they were still sold out, with a total of 30,000 tickets sold.
There is really no way to sell the last more than 9,000 tickets, because they have to be reserved for some away fans, there are some mobile seats, and we have to take care of the casual fans, so they can't be sold anymore.
Thirty thousand season tickets brought Leeds United over ten million pounds in revenue, which simply surprised everyone.
But the most dissatisfied are Leeds United fans, because they are complaining that the capacity of the team's Elland Road stadium is too small and cannot meet their requirements.
Many fans even called the club and newspapers, asking the club to increase the supply of season tickets and put the stadium expansion on the agenda as soon as possible to meet the fans' growing needs for watching football.
How can those 39,000 seats meet the needs of Leeds United’s population of nearly 800,000?
Not to mention, there is only one Premier League team in Yorkshire, Leeds United.
Under pressure from fans and the media, Leeds United had to rush to appease the team, saying that the team's season tickets had indeed been sold out. As for stadium expansion, this was also a big problem.
As early as the beginning of the century, Leeds United had proposed further expansion of the stadium.
The Elland Road Stadium has been expanded several times in the past few years. Otherwise, how could it have a capacity of nearly 40,000 now?
But after all, this stadium was built in 1897. Yes, that’s right, it has a history of more than 100 years.
Under such circumstances, should Leeds United continue to repair and expand the Elland Road stadium? Or should they make up their mind, bite the bullet and prepare to build a new stadium?
This is actually a question worthy of further study.
Gao Shen and the team are also cautious about this, especially considering that the team's funds are not abundant now, so they will not consider this aspect for the time being. When the time is ripe in the future, it will depend on the situation.
To put it simply, if you have money, rebuild it; if you don’t have money, expand it.
But Leeds United fans gave up.
If you don't do it quickly, how will we buy tickets?
Don’t have money? If you don’t have money, sell the tickets first to raise some money, and let’s expand first.
But the club could only respond with a helpless smile.
This quickly became an interesting story in British and even European football circles.
When all the lower league teams are struggling to sell tickets, it is incredible that Leeds United's supply exceeds demand to such an extent that it even triggers "riots" by fans.
Many teams have even begun to follow suit and have offered return activities similar to Leeds United's, hoping to stimulate fans' consumption desire, but the effect is far less good than Leeds United's.
Firstly, Leeds United does have a strong fan base; secondly, Leeds United also made considerable preparations before launching the policy. At the same time, the team's signings also allowed fans to see their ambition to enter the Premier League.
If it were some other weak teams, even if they shouted that they wanted to go to the Super League and they would be refunded, who would believe it?
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When word of the ticket sales reached Gao Shen's ears, he was leading Manchester City in the United States for a summer training camp to prepare for the game.
Gao Shen is quite satisfied with this gratifying result, which further strengthens his confidence in running Leeds United.
Not to mention anything else, what else can't be done just for these fans?
As for Su Qing and Fernando Lucas' investment promotion in China, the progress is quite smooth.
In recent years, many Chinese brands have gone abroad and have a strong interest in sports sponsorship, including home appliances, photovoltaics, communications and personal digital products.
Su Qing and others are also actively negotiating with companies in this area, and the progress is quite good.
According to Su Qing's phone call to Gao Shen, if nothing unexpected happens, the name of a Chinese company will be printed on the chest of Leeds United this season.
Of course, don’t think too much about sponsorship fees.
Knowing that everything was going well with Leeds United, Gao Shen focused more on Manchester City.
This time Manchester City went to North America for training because they were invited to participate in the World Football Challenge, the predecessor of the International Champions Cup.
This is the second session.
This event is a gold medal event. The participating teams have generous appearance fees, which is quite attractive, and they are all giants from major leagues, such as Real Madrid, Barcelona, Manchester United, Juventus, and Manchester City.
Manchester City's trip is also aimed at developing the North American market.
Although there has been little in the transfer market this summer, Manchester City is still a long way from being financially healthy.
With the intervention of Paris Saint-Germain, Rummenigge, as the chairman of Bayern Munich and also the chairman of the UEFA Club Association, publicly requested UEFA to conduct inspections on all teams, focusing on teams such as Manchester City and Paris Saint-Germain.
Financial investigation.
Obviously, these established giants have clearly felt the threat from the tycoons in the Middle East.
Moreover, this threat will become bigger and bigger.
No wonder they are worried, because someone like Paris Saint-Germain can spend two to three hundred million euros in one summer without even frowning. That is really terrible.
Not to mention Bayern Munich, Real Madrid can't do this.
This has even gone far beyond the scope of traditional football clubs.
Under the coaching of Gao Shen, Manchester City became the Champions League champion in two years. There is news that Paris Saint-Germain also wants to invite Gao Shen to coach. What if he brings Paris Saint-Germain out too?
By then, the entire European football world will be lively.
Therefore, the best way is to thoroughly investigate the financial situation of these teams, especially some financial means to circumvent the Financial Fair Play policy, and ensure that all clubs compete in a fair environment as much as possible.
But everyone knows that this is basically impossible.
Especially Gao Shen, he knows better than anyone else that this is just the beginning.
Paris Saint-Germain is a rich man who can pay more than 200 million euros for Neymar's release fee, and more and more rich people will enter European football in the future.
