Liam Keen sat down to discuss the latest in the Wolves season tickets saga.
Liam joined Jonny Drury to discuss the latest developments - and the rising number of fans signing the petition.
They look at the Wolves Supporters' Trust response - and discuss what the next steps could be.
Liam joined Jonny Drury to discuss the latest developments - and the rising number of fans signing the petition.
They look at the Wolves Supporters' Trust response - and discuss what the next steps could be.
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SportsTranscript
00:00 Dino, the Wolves season ticket saga situation, fiasco, whatever the fans want to call it,
00:14 continues to rumble on. We're getting daily updates from the Wolves Sports Trust. We've
00:19 now called for an extension to renewals. Obviously, there's a petition still going on, which is
00:24 gathering signatures. We're having an awful lot from Wolves at the moment. I know you
00:30 and Nathan sat down and discussed it just after the announcement. So I just wanted to
00:36 get your sort of up-to-date opinion on it, really, and how you think, because we can't
00:43 say a lot of things for definite, but how you think it might play out, because it's
00:47 safe to say that this is not going anywhere anytime soon.
00:50 Yeah, definitely. We'll come on to how it plays out in a second, but it's obviously
00:55 going to be tough to predict. But what we can say so far is that the Wolves fans are
01:01 not letting up in their campaign, if you will, against the season ticket price hikes. Wolves
01:08 have managed to unify the supporters, but not in the way they would have wanted, because
01:13 the fan group, seven of them, seven of the major fan groups, alongside, obviously, general
01:17 supporters have come together pretty much in unison to say that this is far too big
01:22 a hike. As you mentioned there, the petition, at the time of recording, it's just over 13,000
01:28 signatures on that petition. So that's obviously gathering pace and momentum. On top of that,
01:33 you've got the fan groups coming together and putting out sort of fairly regular statements
01:37 at the moment, asking for communication, open dialogue with Geoff Sheehan, chairman and
01:41 Wolves in general, and the senior management at the Clue, of course. And then, as you just
01:47 mentioned, the latest thing is that they've mentioned that they want an extension to the
01:52 renewal deadline, which at the moment is June 14th, because they want dialogue and they
01:57 want some sort of resolution to come from that dialogue with the club. And they believe
02:02 that having that extension will allow some sort of resolution to happen. And then hopefully,
02:07 the same fans to sign up and spend their money and follow the club that they love. So that's
02:12 currently where we're at. And as I mentioned, the top of the answer is that supporters are
02:18 not letting it go. It's been one of the most challenging times, I think, for Geoff Sheehan
02:23 Fosun since they arrived at the club. And it'd be fascinating to see how it plays out.
02:29 As you mentioned, we've not heard a lot from the club so far. In many ways, I can understand
02:32 why, because it's such a hot topic, a difficult one for them to approach. But I would imagine
02:37 they probably will address it at some point in some way. We're doing all we can to try
02:41 and get answers. Of course, we're staying in communication with the fans and the fan
02:45 groups as well to get the latest on their movements with this sort of campaign against
02:52 the price hikes. But we're yet to see or hear a major update. And for where it may go, again,
02:59 it's really tough to call. It's almost a case of who blinks first. And I feel sorry for
03:05 a lot of supporters in many ways. And one of the ways being that some people won't be
03:10 able to afford it. And that's awful as it is. That's the bottom line. That's terrible
03:14 and awful. And I feel terrible for those people as individuals. There'll be some people who
03:18 will refuse to pay it, point blank refuse to pay it at all. They, out of principle,
03:23 will not pay that money. And then there's the people sort of in the middle that at the
03:26 moment will not have paid it or refusing to pay it. But if and when that deadline stays
03:32 on June 14th and it comes around, do they worry about losing their spot and then go
03:38 and take it up anyway, regardless of the price? So that obviously is a waiting game for the
03:42 next two weeks to find out if those supporters do that. There's a lot of things that can
03:47 happen. But the bottom line is that Wolves fans do not agree, understandably so, and
03:53 they are battling on against it.
03:55 Do you think this is, you know, obviously we're still relatively only a few weeks after
04:00 the season. Players will be on holiday. I'm sure Gary O'Neill might be on holiday. But
04:04 does this maybe distract from the footballing side of things if this continues to rumble
04:12 on? Obviously at the moment there's not a lot to talk about in terms of transfers and
04:15 in terms of on-pitch action because we're in the close season. But if this continues
04:19 to rumble on, say, into towards pre-season, does that become a bit of a problem?
04:24 Yeah, definitely. You see what a atmosphere and a fan base that may not be on board can
04:29 do to a club. Look at Wolves last year. Now this wasn't necessarily a fan base issue.
04:33 It was more obviously financials and June Lopetegui being unhappy. But you can see what
04:37 happens when there is disharmony at a club going into a season. Of course, it worked
04:43 out well for Wolves in the end because Gary came in, Gary did a very good job and of course
04:47 Wolves had a good season despite a disappointed end to it. But this will be an unwelcome distraction
04:53 for Gary O'Neill and his players. Now he'll be aware of what's going on. Gary O'Neill's
04:58 a very intelligent man. He pays attention to what's being said out there. I don't know
05:02 if he pays attention to all of it, but he definitely pays attention to some. And he'll
05:06 be aware of what's happening and he'll be desperate and the players will be desperate
05:10 for zero distractions going into pre-season and into the new season. And they deserve
05:14 that because they deserve to do the best job they can possibly do. And hopefully Wolves
05:17 will bring signers in to make that happen. But at the same time, when you have a decision
05:21 like this and a backlash like this, it's not going to go away until there's some sort of
05:25 resolution. I spoke to Dave Edwards for the column of the Express and Star this week and
05:31 he was quite rational about it to say, I totally understand where fans are coming from, but
05:34 I just hope, and I do feel this is what he said, that Wolves will find some sort of resolution
05:39 with the fans, some sort of middle ground, some sort of common ground. And I hope that
05:42 happens because Wolves deserve to go into the season without these distractions. But
05:46 at the same time, it's been brought upon themselves by a decision that many feel was ill thought
05:53 through. And then you've got things on top of that as well. I think it's an important
05:56 point to mention about the disabled tickets, because I know a lot of people have been speaking
06:00 about this and it was without having the figures in front of us. When the news broke, we were
06:05 all working on anecdotal evidence because we didn't have any of the figures from the
06:09 club at the time. So I'd made it pretty clear with a quote tweet to say, just to make this
06:14 clear, this one specific fan I was talking about moved from under 17 to under 21. I just
06:18 want to make that point again, so that people aren't confusing a targeted increase on wheelchair
06:24 supporters. There is no sort of specific targeted increase on wheelchair supporters, but in
06:29 this one specific case, I am just going to read from a story for a second to bear with
06:33 me is that one supporter got in touch with Express and Star to say their disabled child
06:37 had moved from categories under 17 to under 21 for next season. And their wheelchair ticket
06:41 in the North Bank has gone up from £211 to £489, which is 131.7% increase. So going
06:49 from under 17 to under 21 is going to have an impact on that price going up. That's obvious.
06:54 However, it's still a huge rise regardless of that. And that comes into rises across
06:59 the board that we've seen with the younger supporters under 14s and going through all
07:03 the way through most of the age groups in most of the stands. So I think it's important
07:07 to point to raise that because I don't want that to be something that people batter the
07:11 club for when I think it needs to be clear what the facts are. But at the same time,
07:16 you know, you made your own bed by making a decision that many people feel is unjust.