Amex Stadium to become cashless for 2020-21 season
Goodbye cash. The Albion have announced that the Amex will become a cashless stadium in the very near future with no notes or coins to be accepted by the start of the 2020-21 season at the very latest.
All of the ground’s kiosks, hospitality suites, merchandise points and programme booths will only accept contactless payments for food, beer, merchandise and matchday magazines going forward in a bid to reduce queuing times.
According to Paul Barber, the majority of fans already use card payments. He’s also busted out some wonderfully precise figures, stating that the average contactless transaction takes 83 seconds compared to 167 seconds for cash.
Where he’s got those numbers from is less clear. We can safely say that in the West Upper at half time, the average transaction normally takes about five minutes as staff are unable to locate any vegetarian pies, have to pour a white wine from one plastic bottle into a different plastic glass, unscrew the lid from a Fanta in the hope that you spill it everywhere and therefore have to buy another one before looking very embarrassed when they ask you for £3.20 for a bag of Starburst (THREE POUND TWENTY).
Despite all that, this does seem a sensible move – certainly for Amex regulars anyway. We can’t remember the last time we used cash inside the stadium, a far cry from the days of having to visit an ATM in places such as Carlisle or Rochdale before the game if you wanted to ensure you could have a hot dog at half time.
Football grounds on the continent have long been cashless. Venues in Germany in particular require fans to put money onto a smart card which is then used to pay for transactions in a similar way to how you used to be able to put money onto your season ticket card in the first few seasons at the Amex.
Grounds at the 2018 World Cup in Russia would also only accept card. Because of FIFA’s sponsorship deal with Visa, it had to be issued by that particular company as well, which was a slight issue if you were with Mastercard, American Express or another issuer.
What’s less clear is how it is going to impact on those who aren’t as comfortable using contactless. Older supporters might not be in possession of a contactless card nor know how to use it. Or they might just prefer to pay in cold, hard cash.
It will be interesting to see how away fans cope with it as well, many of whom will be used to paying in cash. Supporters of clubs such as Burnley for example who come from the 19th century may have only just become accustomed to the withdrawal of the farthing, let alone decimalisation or paying for goods with a piece of plastic.
Then of course there are potential issues with the technology. While the Amex’s new WiFi is outrageously good and one of the world’s leading bank card companies in American Express will be providing their expertise, you can never say with 100 percent certainty that there won’t be problems.
In fact, it would be a very typical Brighton thing for the club to make a big song and dance about going contactless, only for there to be connection issues in the first game at which cash is not accepted. One right there for our infamous ridiculous Albion things Twitter thread.
The club will be phasing the technology in gradually over the coming months. That will begin with Saturday’s game with Burnley, with the middle kiosk of each stand as well as the kiosk at the north end of the East Upper no longer accepting cash.
Should things go according to plan, then the introduction will be ramped up and the Amex could well become contactless before the planned stadium-wide launch date of next August.
