Brighton agree to offer season ticket holders a 75% refund

Power to the people. After a stormy couple of days between Brighton supporters and the club, the Albion have announced that they are to start offering a refund on what supporters have paid towards a 2020-21 season ticket.

Previously, the club had said that they would collect six months worth of direct debit payments and then hold this money as “credit”, either to go towards matchday tickets should supporters be allowed to return to a reduced capacity Amex or to knock off the cost of a 2021-22 season ticket.

Those who had paid in full would have their money kept by the club too. Although not ideal, most Brighton supporters were willing to leave their money with the club to help pay the bills out of love and loyalty. The bond between fans runs deeper than that of a normal customer and a business.

That was until Friday, when Sky Sports, BT Sports and the Premier League announced plans to start charging fans £15 PPV to watch games that were not part of the regular Sky schedule.

Suddenly, the Albion were sitting on hundreds of pounds of supporters money which had been paid to watch games such as Brighton versus West Bromwich Albion. At the same time as telling fans they would need to pay another £15 to watch that fixture.

A huge number of emails began flooding into Paul Barber’s inbox about the issue. The Albion CEO responded to each one, but he failed to grasp the anger that being asked to pay more money towards a product we had already paid for was causing.

Barber’s replies became increasingly fraught. He began parroting lines such as “We have a right to sell our product how we see fit” and, perhaps most damagingly given the history of the Albion and the battles supporters fought to save the club, “Unfortunately, football fans always want everything for free.”

Nobody at the club seemed to understand why supporters were miffed at being asked to pay £15 on top of what had already been contributed. Yes, supporters would get something for their season ticket money eventually – either through attending matches later in the season or by paying less next season.

But credit resting in Brighton & Hove Albion’s bank towards a 2021-22 season ticket with no option of a refund in the here and now doesn’t put food on the table. It won’t pay the mortgages of fans who may have lost their jobs due to the pandemic or face an uncertain financial future.

Even the likes of Ryanair and EasyJet had to offer refunds as option alongside trying to keep the money of customers towards future flights.

“We are business” was another of Barber’s favourite responses, seemingly unaware that no other business would be allowed to treat its ‘customers’ in such a way.

The club could not have its cake and eat it. They had used supporter loyalty and dedication to assume that keeping season ticket holder’s money in the first place would be agreeable to fans.

To then start treating us as ‘customers’ when it saw fit was something of an insult. No customer accepted a flight in a year’s time with Ryanair over a refund out of a lifelong association with the business after all.

Understandably, this attitude left a lot of Albion fans extremely peeved and many threatened to cancel their season tickets for 2021-22. Not only was Barber’s inbox full of such complaints (despite his early insistence that the majority of fans backed the club’s stance), but social media and North Stand Chat also exploded with lifelong supporters stating their disillusionment.

Well, fair play then to Brighton & Hove Albion who have listened to those concerns and decided to offer a season ticket refund. More details are to be released via email in the current days, but the general gist of it is that fans can now claim back 75% of what they have paid for 2020-21.

Brighton will hold onto 25%, maintaining a ‘credit balance’ to go towards any future games in which season ticket holders are chosen to attend through the ballot system.

Anything unused from this 25% will be knocked off 2021-22 or be refunded come the end of the season should the ticket holder choose not to renew.

For those who paid a lump sum for their Brighton 2020-21 season ticket, the total refund amount they can claim is 75% of that total.

Fans who pay via direct debit can claim 75% of the total they have been billed so far. This is where it can get a little complicated as some fans rolled over their credit from the final five games of 2019-20, but essentially you add together the refund you were due for last year and the amount paid in 2020-21 and 75% of that total is what you can claim back.

Supporters can claim a refund at anytime between now and February 15th. Requests made before the 15th of each month will be paid on the 1st of the following month. If you asked for a refund on November 13th, you would received the money on December 1st.

Fans who want an immediate refund have until November 4th to submit their request. These will then be paid on November 18th, before the standard timeframe takes over.

The club have said that they will send out an email confirming the amount which each supporter can claim back. It is then up to fans to request their money anytime between now and February. Refunds that are not claimed will be rolled over to 2021-22, as per the original plan.

Hopefully, the move will quash some of the anger towards the club. Brighton had been superb throughout the pandemic in the way they dealt with and communicated with supporters and the furore from PPV and those emails had threatened to undo all that good work.

Many fans will still not want to pay £15 to watch Brighton take on West Brom at 5.30pm on a Monday evening – but at least they can now decide to do it knowing that they will not have paid for the privilege twice.

Offering season ticket holders a 75% refund should draw a line under this sorry episode and allow Brighton fans to concentrate the really important things in life – like complaining about not signing a striker.