“There are 200 tickets at £77 for six games a season - the best seats in the newest stand in the country. There is no reference to the fact that there are 500 tickets for all the category C games at £9, all the free kids tickets, half-priced tickets for under 21s. If you balance those off, the purpose was to create something for everyone.
“Someone said to me ‘you’re pricing fans out of the stadium’. How are we pricing fans out of the stadium if 65 per cent of season tickets have flattened or come down, and 45 per cent of matchday tickets have come down? Aren’t we feeding what we - certainly me as a Liverpool fan - have been saying for years: more young people, more local people? These initiatives are feeding that.
“Some season tickets are cheaper than they were two or three years ago. You can never give everybody what they want but you have to try and create a range.”
The cost of watching football is spiraling despite the billions raised in TV revenue, prompting the angry responses from disillusioned fans’ group across the country.
“Football as a whole should want to stop the rising cost of football,” said Ayre.
“It isn't ticket prices that are driving the costs of football but player prices and agents fees.
“The Premier League can adopt all the things but it only works if it is across the whole of football. It's not for the Premier League to drive it. I don't see any movement on it any time soon.”
After an era of fans’ protest during the era of Tom Hicks and George Gillett, Ayre said current owners Fenway Sports Group have always tried to engage with supporters.
“The club was in a real mess (when FSG bought it),” he said.
“Now we have great owners - that £100million for the new Main Stand came interest-free and they don't take a penny out of this football club.”
- Telegraph