Leeds, Huddersfield and the problem with away ticket price caps in the EFL

The ‘Twenty’s Plenty’ campaign — a supporter-led drive to reduce all away ticket prices in the Premier League to £20 ($24) — fell a little way short of its target, but several years ago the governing body and its member clubs agreed to meet travelling crowds halfway.

Before the start of the 2016-17 season, teams in the top flight voted in favour of capping the cost of seats in away ends at £30, a ceiling that remains in place after a unanimous vote in favour of extending the policy last year. For the past 12 months, the upper limit has been part of the Premier League’s rulebook, ensuring that it is more than advisory. The next review is due in 2025, almost a decade on.

Down in the EFL, there is no such mechanism, as shown by last week’s stand-off between Leeds United and Huddersfield Town over the price of away tickets for the forthcoming game between them at Elland Road on October 28. As of Friday, the clubs were at odds over Leeds charging £47 for travelling adults. Discussions about a reciprocal price deal, a process by which two teams can agree to the same costs for away fans for both of their league meetings in a season, ended in a temporary stalemate.

A weekend of griping followed, encouraged by Huddersfield owner Kevin Nagle tweeting that his club had “asked Leeds management to negotiate prices down for the match. They said no”. The reality was more nuanced than that, not quite as Nagle described it, and the issue was eventually resolved on Monday morning when further talks between Leeds and Huddersfield brought about reciprocal pricing. But the saga shone a light on one of the many differences between the Premier League and the EFL. In the top flight, everyone knows where they stand on away tickets. Below that division, there is no uniformity and no blanket ruling on who can charge what.

Just so you know-

We asked Leeds management to negotiate prices down for the match.

They said no.

— Kevin Nagle (@KevinNagleMLS) October 13, 2023

Leeds have two categories for fixtures in the Championship, A and B. For away fans, the former are priced at £47 for adults and the latter at £45. Huddersfield, as a local derby between two West Yorkshire sides, falls into category A and there is no avoiding the fact that at £47, Elland Road is theoretically as expensive a ground for travelling fans to attend as any in the EFL; more expensive than any Premier League stadium, owing to that £30 price cap.

The reason for the high prices is that the away crowd at Elland Road are situated in a section of the West Stand, which is also one of the most expensive parts of the stadium for home fans. The EFL instructs its member clubs that prices in one area of a ground should not deviate and expects a fixed pricing plan to be submitted before the start of each season. As a consequence, the costs for away fans in the West Stand match those set for home supporters. There was a time when the West Stand offered no concessions at all but that policy changed many years ago. But Leeds’ pricing structure means that all adult tickets start at £45, and that for lower-category matches.

The EFL created a means of bypassing this problem by permitting clubs to negotiate reciprocal pricing: a scheme whereby a different, and often lower, price of away ticket is put in place for the two games between those teams. The loophole means that Leeds and others are free to sell away seats at a major reduction — crucially, below the cost of home tickets in the same area of the ground.

To this point of the Championship season, United have struck reciprocal agreements with several visiting sides to Elland Road, including Cardiff City on the first weekend of the term. Prices for Cardiff supporters were reduced to £21 and travelling Leeds fans will pay the same when Leeds go to Wales in January. Sheffield Wednesday and Queens Park Rangers are the only teams who have not arranged reciprocal pricing with United.

Huddersfield had looked like joining that list after talks with Leeds hit a wall last week. Huddersfield charge a flat £25 for away tickets at their ground, with no categories, and their initial suggestion was that Leeds drop their prices to the same level. Leeds refused, saying that a reciprocal price of £25 involved no reduction or concession on Huddersfield’s part and therefore no financial hit. But on Monday, the clubs spoke again and resolved the matter by reaching a deal to sell away tickets at £20. Leeds are due at Huddersfield in March, when the £20 limit will also apply.

Leeds announced at the beginning of this season that they would offer reciprocal pricing to every other side in the Championship but in the absence of a formal EFL cap, each agreement has to be negotiated individually, on a club-by-club basis. There are no plans for the EFL to introduce a price cap, similar to the Premier League’s, and the governing body declined to comment when contacted by The Athletic.

The EFL’s resistance to a price cap, and its policy of allowing clubs to charge as they see fit, is based on the extent to which its members rely on gate receipts. In simple terms, gate receipts represent a far larger percentage of an EFL team’s income than they do for sides in the top flight, a disparity caused by the Premier League’s incredibly lucrative TV rights contracts. Television deals pay far less in the EFL, so revenue from tickets is more fundamental to financial stability.

Leeds and Huddersfield are good examples. When Huddersfield played in the top flight in 2018-19, their recorded matchday income was just over four per cent of an annual turnover of £119million. In the Championship in 2021-22, it accounted for 17 per cent. In Leeds’ last Championship season that was unaffected by COVID-19, 2018-19, gate receipts were a massive 25 per cent of their revenue. In the Premier League in 2021-22, that percentage dropped to 12, from a total income of £189m.

To introduce an away-ticket price cap, the EFL would require the approval of its member clubs. Discussions about ticket prices take place at every EFL meeting but a formal price cap does not appear to be on the agenda. Like so many things, it is indicative of the difference between the Premier League and the divisions below it: at one level, there is the luxury of limiting costs but at the other, clubs need every penny they can get. And in that respect, there is no change in sight.