Modern Day Football In a Nuthsell: An Away Day in Coventry Will Cost You £45

Modern Day Football In a Nuthsell: An Away Day in Coventry Will Cost You £45

Coventry recently have sparked major backlash in the footballing world. This is due to their decision to charge a ridiculous £45 West Brom away supporters. As well as charging £45 for adult tickets maybe you’d think they might of spared the other age categories, right? Well, you’d be very wrong. They are charging £35 for an under 18 ticket. For a little bit of context I’ve just had a look on Skyscanner and I can fly direct to Frankfurt this coming Saturday (1st November) for £34.

Coventry City have come under scrutiny for pricing of away tickets.

In games against West Brom & Swansea, the Sky Blues are charging £45 for adults and £35 for under-18s. It's left West Brom fans attempting to organise a boycott.

Should there be a cap on ticket prices?🤔 pic.twitter.com/5YtlhTrzjH

— Second Tier podcast (@secondtierpod) October 30, 2025

Away tickets in the Championship are (in my opinion) already too overpriced. Based on last season, the average cost of an away ticket was £28. With there being 23 away games for each team that’s a staggering £644 if you want to go and watch your team away from home every game. Not to mention this doesn’t include travel, food, drinks and accommodation.

Coventry have given no explanation as to why they are charging this amount of money, the only explanation I can think of is pure greed from the board of Coventry, they are punishing the average match going fan all to try and fill their pockets that little bit more.

Fan Backlash

Unsurprisingly West Brom supporters haven’t taken the news lightly. When West Brom announced the ticket information on the 27th of October many of the replies to that post are (rightfully so) annoyed West Brom fans.

Important ticket information for our trip to @Coventry_City is available here 👉 https://t.co/I27zXp05Hy pic.twitter.com/84I0kIZkgA

— West Bromwich Albion (@WBA) October 27, 2025

Some can’t believe what they are seeing, some are calling for the extreme option of a boycott. Someone even worked out that a family of four would cost a whopping £160.

You robbing bastards @Coventry_City https://t.co/BIduNOEmlv

— Tom Garratt (@Tgarratt10) October 27, 2025

A Deeper Issue

Despite Coventry charging those ridiculous prices they aren’t the only club hiking away ticket prices. Based on previous seasons Queens Park Rangers have been charging away fans £37, Bristol City charging £35, Norwich and Middlesbrough both charging £31 etc.

With the ever present cost of living crisis always on the rise your average match going supporters are constantly being priced out season after season from being able to watch their team play. What fans can’t allow to happen is let this be the new normal. It’s a very good thing that West Brom fans want to boycott the Coventry game because it sets a stand against greedy owners wanting to squeeze every last penny out of supporters.

By boycotting the game it causes Coventry themselves to miss out on revenue that they would be making from the away supporters, whether that’s through concourse sales etc. It will hopefully make them think twice about increasing the price of away tickets for fans coming to visit the Coventry Building Society Arena.

Coventry’s financial problems

Coventry have had major financial troubles in the 21st century. In 2013 the club entered administration due to rent disputes and debts to the stadium owners, this led to a 10 point deduction and to a temporary ground share with Northampton Town and Birmingham City. Even in 2021 they club had debts as high as £52 million, then a year later the club had a brief transfer embargo placed upon them due to delayed payments to HMRC.

Alas they were taken over in January of 2023, all debts were dealt with and the clubs financial misfortunes were a thing of the past and they even reported a pre tax profit of £8.7 million in the financial year of 2023-24.

So, despite Coventry not giving a reason for the high ticket prices one reason could be due to the poor financial situation the club was in and the new owner is wanting to help recoup as much money as possible. Albeit this is a stretch and personally I don’t think it’s the reason for the ticket prices but I might as well shine some light on their financial issues.

Twenty’s Plenty Campaign

Back in 2013 the Football Supporters’ Association founded the campaign called Twenty’s Plenty. This was a campaign to push for there to be a cap of £20 on away tickets for fans at all levels, they did this as they wanted to “recognise their (the fans) contribution and keep the game a vibrant spectacle for all”.

This campaign eventually led the Premier League to announce a £30 cap on all away tickets in 2016. However, no such cap has been put in place by the EFL for the rest of the football league. But the fact this campaign was started and the only slight positive from it is that the Premier League put a £30 cap on away tickets shows how much of a growing disconnect there is between the clubs and the supporters.

Round Up

Match going fans save up as much money to follow their team, they dedicate their weekends to the team they support and a lot of the time their efforts don’t get recognised.

As fans we can hope that this is the start of a movement to push back on expensive away tickets and be a part of a change that would greatly benefit the sport. However, I don’t think this will be the case, owners will always be as greedy as ever and regardless of what they think about fans, they will always try and squeeze as much money out of them.

Could this be the end or the start of something much bigger than just a single game being expensive for away fans?