Brighton to charge £15 to enter Boxpark Wembley on semi final day

Brighton and Hove Albion’s milking of the FA Cup Semi Final cash cow continues with the news that the club are hiring what is normally a free bar for supporters outside of Wembley and charging people to use it.

Boxpark Wembley has become a popular venue for fans visiting the national stadium. With a lack of any decent pubs in the area, it’s three bars and various street food kiosks have made it the best place to go both before and after matches.

Naturally, this means that Paul Barber has secured exclusive use of the facility for Albion fans for the game with Manchester City and will be charging up to £15 for supporters to use it.

Barber has described Boxpark Wembley as the Seagulls’ “HQ for the day” for directors, staff, sponsors, and guests. Us plebs can also join the party as long as we’re willing to pay £10 for pre game access between 11am and 5pm and £10 for post game access from the final whistle up until 11pm. An all day pass is available for the bargain price of £15.

Is it really necessary to charge supporters to use a facility that would be free to use on virtually any other day of the year? While securing the exclusive use of Boxpark no doubt cost a few quid, it isn’t like the Albion are short of money. Especially when we can find a spare £250,000 to hand over to multi millionaire Richard Scudamore as a goodbye present for when he leaves his role as Executive Chairman of the Premier League.

Portsmouth meanwhile – that’s League One Portsmouth, with revenue streams a fraction of the Albion’s – have also secured the same exclusive use of the same facility for their Checkatrade Checkatrade.com Trophy Final against Sunderland. The cost to their supporters? Nothing. It’s absolutely free.

This has all the echoes of when the Albion decided to try and profit from the popular Seven Stars Bar in the East Stand of the Amex. They took a previously free facility for supporters and decided to charge £250 for access to it for the season or £12 on the day. Needless to say this went down like Wilfried Zaha under no contact in the penalty area, and the facility went from a packed bar every home game to being shut within two years.

Given the one-off nature of the occasion, we’ve no doubt that charging for Boxpark will be much more of a success than the Seven Stars decision proved. But wouldn’t it be nice if, just for once, the club didn’t just think about how they can fleece fans for more cash? This FA Cup Semi Final is showing the club up in that regard as the pound signs continue to flash in front of Profit Paul’s eyes.

We’ve already got the commemorative FA Cup Semi Final shirt which is available for just £50 of your hard earned cash, as well as a wide array of fantastic overpriced crap which you can take to Wembley, on which we will be writing a feature very soon hopefully.

With entry to a normally free bar now costing £15, the FA Cup continues to be the cow that the Albion are determined to milk for as much cash as possible. Just imagine what it will be like if we reach the final…