Ed’s note. The sender of this letter has forwarded us a copy so that his unhappiness with what Arsenal have asked of their supporters gets as wide an audience as possible. Just to clarify what has happened, Arsenal put the tickets for Spurs away on sale at Tottenham’s Grade B prices, due to Spurs’ error. When they sent the tickets out, there was an accompanying letter asking the Arsenal fans to stump up around £10 extra to compensate Spurs for their mistake. Those on the away season ticket scheme will have the extra money deducted automatically, and have no choice over whether to pay.

To the Chief Executive, Arsenal Football Club

4th February 2009

Re: Spurs Away Ticket – Arsenal’s Request for Additional Payment

Dear Sir,

I have not been specifically instructed by anyone as yet which is why this letter is not on my firm’s headed note paper but as a Season Ticket Holder for very many years and being a solicitor, I have been consulted by several fellow Arsenal supporters regarding the letter that accompanied the tickets for this game requesting an additional payment because apparently Spurs had made an administrative error regarding the costs of tickets and Arsenal have apparently agreed with Spurs to make up the difference.

I note that the letter has been signed by the Box Office Manager. I appreciate that you have had barely enough time to get your feet under the table and may not be aware just how many supporters over very many years have been disgruntled and offended by the treatment of the Box Office staff in particular and the club generally towards its own loyal supporters.

In order to give you a flavour I attach copy letters from Autumn 2006 relating to what became known as the Charlton Ticket Fiasco. On that occasion, the very same Box Office Manager not once responded personally to any correspondence leaving it to his staff to take the flack and the responsibility.

I have had an opportunity speak to two members of the Box Office staff regarding the letter. It was explained to me that Arsenal have agreed to refund the underpayment to Spurs as a goodwill gesture as relationships between the clubs are very good and that jobs were at stake. On one level I can understand the stance taken by Arsenal but you may not be aware that two years ago Spurs are the very same club who, unlike every other club that Arsenal have ever been drawn against in the Carling Cup, vetoed Arsenal’s policy of reducing the price of match tickets in order to maximise their profit thus forcing both sets of supporters to pay considerably higher prices than that which Arsenal wished to charge. The same thing happened last season and, quite frankly, Arsenal could easily have used this opportunity to tell Spurs that in normal circumstances they would have co-operated but not on this occasion given the recent history as described above.

There have been rumours and blogs to the effect that Box Office staff had told supporters that failure to pay would lead to sanctions such as being blacklisted when it comes to the purchase of future tickets and that the Box Office had even stated its intention simply to take the money using the Credit Card details from the original purchase.

The Box Office staff have assured me that this is untrue and these rumours are merely mischief making and I am glad to hear that is so. However, given the manner in which Box Office staff have treated supporters in the past, you ought to be concerned that supporters like myself actually considered that there was some credibility in these rumours. It is a matter that you should investigate because it may well be that staff were making these threats when enquiries were first being made only to be told not to do so at a later date.

The Box Office staff told me that to date 50% of those requested to pay the additional money had indeed co-operated. If this is true then I have no doubt that is because of the wording and tone of the letter that was sent. The Box Office staff admitted that it deliberately chose not to spell out clearly that legally nobody was obliged to pay the additional amount and that no sanctions whatsoever would be imposed if payment was not made.

The reason why so many supporters have asked me for my advice is because they were unclear as to the legal status of Arsenal’s request for further payment. Knowing how the club has treated supporters in the past I have no doubt at all that it was a deliberate policy of the club to word the letter in such a way as to give supporters the opportunity to think they had better make the payment just in case they were obliged to do so and just in case the club would impose sanctions if payment was not made.

My belief is firmed up by the complete absence of any information whatsoever on the club’s official web site, which is supposed to be the official forum for communication between the club and the supporters. I would like you to answer why it is that there has been no mention of this subject matter on the web site and why on the web site the club has not made it clear that this would be a purely voluntary payment; that there was no obligation to pay and that no sanctions would be imposed.

At the maximum the underpayment in total is £29,000.00, which equates to half a week’s salary for some players’ wages and in terms of the annual turnover of both clubs is minimal. In my view and that of many others any respectable organisation dealing with members of the public on a large scale would not have involved its customers in a transaction with another rival organisation in which mistakes had been made. A respectable organisation would have kept the matter in house and would not have dared to try and involve its customers in its problems.

However, of course, customers of, for example, department stores do not have the same loyalty as supporters of a football club and are not going to simply switch to another club in the same manner as a customer who uses one department store regularly would readily switch to another if that customer felt that department store was not treating the customer with proper respect.

As a quite sensible alternative, the club could have invited supporters to make voluntary donations explaining that the club would bear the loss and then advising supporters that such donations would actually be passed on to the club’s chosen charity.

It is only because of my experience of dealings with the club over many years that it comes as no surprise that nobody at the club considered that as a possible option. I need not go into any greater details as to the obvious benefit of having put forward that proposal to supporters.

I suspect that you and very many of the senior Arsenal staff have very comfortable standards of living. I wonder how you would feel if having purchased a car for several thousand pounds from your regular dealership, a few days later the dealership said to you that it had made a terrible mistake and wanted you to pay an extra 25%. I rather suspect that you and the other members of the senior staff with comfortable lifestyles would be very resentful at such a request but of course it would be much easier for you to tell the dealership that from now on you will go elsewhere for business than it is for supporters to tell the club that they will no longer support the club, which is simply not going to happen as the club well knows.

The club owes the supporters a massive apology and you should be conducting an urgent investigation into why it is that loyal supporters like myself have had numerous problems with the box office staff over many years starting with a serious look at whether or not the Box Office Manager has the suitable qualities for this job. Indeed, if you really want to know the truth about the supporters’ feelings towards the Box Office and the club generally you ought to ask via the web site for supporters to send in details of their horror stories with the Box Office and I can assure you that you would have to employ extra staff to deal with the volume of the response.