Manchester United fans are reportedly planning a large-scale protest outside Old Trafford following a recent ticket price increase.
The club announced the sudden price hike for official Man United members earlier this week, removing the concession discount for all ticket options, which means that no matter your age or accessibility needs, games will cost £66 for the rest of the 24/25 campaign.
Seemingly decided overnight, the changes have been put into immediate effect, meaning from now until May 2025, adult fans looking to grab a standard ticket to the match will have to pay an extra £16 for the pleasure – the last thing people want to hear during the festive period and wider cost of living crisis.
As a result of the steps taken by the higher-ups, the official Manchester United Supporters Trust (MUST) has issued an official statement, calling the decision “offensive” and warning that this could signal something bigger and more severe next season. Not unlike the club, one group is acting now.
As an associated member of the FSA and together with Everton supporters group, we will be protesting (peacefully) on Sunday before the game to support their current #StopExploitingLoyalty… pic.twitter.com/tT1cKYUbkW
Supporters group The 1958, who helped spearhead the most recent slate of anti-Glazer demonstrations. between 2021 and 2023, say they contacted the club to ask for permission to bring a banner reading ‘Stop Exploiting Loyalty into the crowd but “unfortunately they didn’t even have the courtesy to reply.”
Having “demanded” the ticket price increase be reversed, they sent an extensive letter to the club this week; in an effort to remain transparent, they shared the correspondence in full on their website.
Addressing recently appointed CEO Omar Berrada (formerly of the City Football Group) directly, the letter expressed, in short, their “anger and disappointment” over the new prices, labelling it “exploitation of our loyal fan base”, highlighting the new obstruction to not only young but pension-age and disabled supporters as a “disgusting low blow”.
Suggesting that this could start a trend of fans ultimately being forced to sell their season tickets only for them to be immediately resold at a higher price, they described the strategy as ‘corporate touting’ and “the first step towards dynamic pricing”.
As a result, although United are set to play in the Europa League on Thursday night, the crucially peaceful demonstration outside the home ground will be held with associated members of the Football Supporters Association (FSA) and Everton fans before their Premier League game this weekend.
The new flat-rate Man United ticket price which has sparked protest plans. (Credit: screenshot)
To put this into context, these new minimum prices mean that it would cost a grand total of £132 just for a parent to take their child to a match this season, and all of this inflation has happened without any consultation with supporters’ groups.
As for MUST, they called out the club’s insistence that 97% of this current season’s tickets are now sold, questioning the veracity of this claim and also going on to share the fear “that this is only the opening salvo of what will surely be massive pressure to implement a significant price rise for next season.”
With INEOS having carried out a raft of cost-cutting measures, including getting rid of 250 members of staff – which is also said to have cost them £8.6 million in redundancy packages – the is clearly part of Sir Jim Ratcliffe and co. plans to streamline the business which is still approximately £867 million in debt.
Nevertheless, it now looks like fans are the next to pay for the policy and although will no doubt be lofted by the arrival of their new manager, Rúben Amorim, until results improve and prices are reduced or at the very least frozen, it’s looking like it could be another fraught period at the Theatre of Dreams.
Urgent discussions! It needs more direct action than that, call a boycott or a protest march.
Pep Guardiola hints at when Manchester City fans can expect to see their latest arrival
Danny Jones
Manchester City manager Pep Guardiola has given supporters a rough timeline as to when they can expect to see their new signing, or at least their latest arrival, make his first appearance.
The Blues wrapped up the January transfer window with four major signings: their new attacking number seven, Omar Marmoush (who has already bagged a hattrick on his home debut) promising defensive duo, Abdukodir Khusanov and Brazilian Vitor Reis, as well as their ‘mini-Rodri’, Nico Gonzalez.
However, the club has had another late arrival who was technically signed back at the start of last year but who has spent for the last 12 months or so loaned back to his previous parent club, River Plate in Argentina, waiting to make the move over to the Etihad Stadium – and now he’s here in Manchester.
Speaking on his touchdown in 0161, Pep said Claudio Echeverri won’t be thrown into first-team action straight away but did give a rough estimate as to when City fans could expect him to get involved. You can see him discussing the integration plan in his post-match press conference following the Spurs win.
The mention was only brief but there’s still plenty of reason for Man City fans to be excited by the late January signing.
“Yeah, he [Claudio Echeverri] is going to start to train and mainly will be for the end of the season, maybe the [Club] World Cup and as soon as possible [that] he arrives he can adapt quick for the future.”
As mentioned, the 19-year-old Argentinian attacking midfielder from Resistencia officially put pen to paper with CFG back in January 2024 and was quickly dubbed ‘the next Messi’.
Now, although the football world is often quick to jump the gun with these things and he isn’t the first and certainly won’t be last to be slapped with this premature title, he’s done more to back up these claims since then than he has rubbish them.
Starring at the 2025 Under-20 South American Championships, netting six goals in nine games to finish the tournament as the second highest scorer thanks to notable braces against Brazil and Uruguay as the young Argentine’s finished as runners up.
He also notched 48 senior appearances for River Plate thus far, netting four goals and grabbing eight assists in that time, not to mention having already captained his national team at the 2023 Under 17s World Cup, where he scored another five.
Safe to say there’s plenty of talent to be tapped in this lad.
Once again, Echeverri won’t go straight into the senior set-up for a little while yet, barring a major injury crisis, but he’ll be a more than exciting addition to the City Football Academy and for future first-team lineups for years to come.
Who knows, maybe he’ll be included in an FA Cup matchday squad? Nevertheless, you can expect him to not just come of the bench but hopefully show what he can do at the Club World Cup this summer.
City‘s first fixture as reigning champions of the competition will be against Moroccan side Wydad AC on 18 June 2025.
You can watch Echeverri’s first full interview as a Man City player down below:
The new Man City signing is excited to be finally be part of the club 13 months on from agreeing his contract.
‘Nothing is eternal’: Is Pep Guardiola hinting at the end of Manchester City’s supremacy?
Danny Jones
Pep Guardiola looks to have suggested that more than a decade of Manchester City’s supremacy and Premier League dominance at the very least might be coming to an end.
Speaking in his post-match press interviews after City were knocked out of the Champions League by serial European Cup winners Real Madrid, Guardiola cut a somewhat more deflated figure than usual following the 3-1 defeat.
A Kylian Mbappe hattrick which was closed out within an hour of play was enough to stretch the aggregate score to 6-3 over the two legs and Madrid doubling their lead across the tie proved yet again why, not unlike City domestically over the last decade, they’re the kings of the continental competition.
In contrast, however, Pep seemed to accept the loss much more easily than perhaps we’ve seen in the past and rather than appearing familiarly frustrated or defiant in the press conference; instead, he seemed rather reflective, responding to one reporter: “Nothing is eternal”.
🗣️ "Nothing is eternal" – Pep Guardiola.
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Insisting that they have to decide whether a significant rebuild is needed to keep competing at the very top level consistently as they have done since the 54-year-old arrived back in 2016, he argued that it is only with that they’ll be able to determine what comes next.
As for the result itself, he made no bones about Carlo Ancelotti’s side having “deserved it”, stating simply that “the best team won” and that fans and players alike have to “accept the reality: they were better.”
Having been a familiar foe for Pep long before he arrived in Manchester, both at Barcelona and Bayern Munich – not to mention City having faced Los Blancos a dozen times before Tuesday night since 2012 – there have been less surprising outcomes for supporters to come to terms with.
“With time, the club and everyone is going to accept what it is but for now we have 30/40 games for the Premier League next season to try and be here [in the Champions League] and to improve. Nothing is eternal”, said the Catalan coaching genius.
On the other hand, he also went on to add that it was merely a reflection on the night itself and not what his team have achieved in recent years.
He went on to remark that “when we were playing outstanding it hurt more” to be knocked out of the UCL when he felt they deserved to stay in it, but still insisted: “We have been unbelievable and we have to try step by step to get better from today.” Tonight just wasn’t the night.
Who knows? Perhaps it was just some more melodrama from a manager with an undeniable flare for pageantry and playing into/in the face of narratives when he doesn’t come out on top – which hasn’t happened all that often until their dip in form this season.
Plus, there’s certainly still plenty for him and the fans to be positive about; not only has the arrival of their ‘Egyptian Prince’ and the media’s Mo Salah successor, Omar Marmoush, got plenty of people excited – especially after that first-half hattrick against Newcastle – but so too have the other January signings.
In fact, for all of his downplaying in this particular presser (which you can hear in full HERE), it felt like there were only upsides after their victory over Newcastle, even going so far as to dub new signing Nico Gonzalez a ‘mini-Rodri‘.
You can watch the highlights from the game down below:
Pep is right, nothing is eternal – but sometimes you just come up against talents like Mbappe and there’s very little anyone can do about it.
Danny Jones -
28th November 2024 
