England only win major football trophies when we have a Labour Government.
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tsarstepan
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Mon 15 Jul, 2024 12:15 pm
I may or may not have posted this before.
Source: Maggie, Larson, The New Yorker
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izzythepush
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Mon 15 Jul, 2024 12:27 pm
Bit muted today, although I am getting fed up with interviews with disappointed fans.
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Walter Hinteler
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Mon 15 Jul, 2024 12:36 pm
Practically everything goes wrong at the Copa final between Argentina and Colombia. It is a miracle that no people die in the tumult outside the stadium. As the host of the 2026 World Cup, the USA has to put up with a lot of criticism.
The fact that the USA was so poorly prepared for the biggest sporting event in terms of sport and organisation two years before the World Cup should also be of interest to football's world governing body, FIFA.
German football club Fortuna Düsseldorf is extending its revolutionary free tickets scheme into a second season and expanding the offer to four home games, the club announced on Thursday.
Second-division outfit Düsseldorf unveiled their "Fortuna for All" project ahead of the 2023/24 campaign in which they gave away tickets for three home games free of charge.
The plan was to compensate for lost ticketing revenue by convincing prominent local businesses to back the socially inclusive scheme as new club sponsors.
At the same time, the club hoped to increase attendance at its MERKUR Spiel Arena, which hosted five matches at this summer's European Championships but is rarely sold out for Düsseldorf home games.
Although Fortuna ultimately missed out on promotion to the top-flight Bundesliga in a dramatic play-off penalty shootout, the club has concluded that the first season of "Fortuna for All" was a success.
[...]
'Fortuna for All' sees overall ticket revenues increase
Fortuna revealed that they received 350,000 ticket requests for the three free home games against Kaiserslautern in October (a dramatic 3-3 draw), Hamburg-based St. Pauli in January (a 1-2 defeat) and Eintracht Braunschweig in April (a 2-0 win) – over five times the usual demand.
And despite earning no revenue from ticket sales for three home matches, the club reported that overall ticketing revenue for the whole season increased by 28%.
Membership of the entirely member-controlled club reportedly increased by a record 20% to over 33,000, while ticket sales for the coming 2024/45 season were up 19%.
One concern attached to offering tickets free of charge was the potential for "no-shows" given the lack of monetary value attached to a ticker, but the club said the average "no-show rate" was lower than for normal games.
According to a survey conducted by the club among its members, 70% thought "Fortuna for all" had gone well and only 9% were unhappy with it. "Our goal is to convince that 9%," said Chairman Jobst.
