Ange Postecoglou says foreign fans who have only just started supporting Tottenham are as entitled to tickets as loyal locals who have cheered on the club for decades.
Postecoglou’s comments follow controversial plans to increase season ticket prices for next season by six percent and scrap concessions for the over-65s. The Tottenham Hotspur Supporters’ Trust has written to Premier League chief executive Richard Masters asking for support in his opposition to the plans.
“The fact that a fan who has had loyal support for thirty, forty or fifty years can now never again purchase a season ticket at a senior discount is shameful and unacceptable,” the letter said.
Those affected fear they will be replaced by ‘plastics’ – a derogatory term referring to supporters with deep wallets but minimal emotional ties to a club – or by ‘tourists’ – wealthy foreign fans.
Tottenham manager Postecoglou made it clear he wanted loyal locals to continue to be accommodated – ‘I want Spurs supporters in the stands, I don’t want just anyone’ – and the Australian also launched an impassioned defense of the overseas supporter.
Ange Postecoglou has responded to Tottenham’s controversial plans to increase the price of season tickets by six percent
The club’s decision has been widely criticized, with the Supporters’ Trust labeling it a ‘disgrace’.
Postecolgou made it clear that he wanted both local loyalists and fans from around the world to be accommodated
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‘I’ll tell you why – I’m probably ‘plastic’ and ‘touristy’ because I came from the other side of the world, really passionate about football and if I could get access to seeing a Premier League match then that the world to me,” he said.
‘This football club has supporters all over the world and I think we should always be able to accommodate them.
“It doesn’t make them any less passionate and it’s really disrespectful to call out fans who are willing to bear the expense of traveling halfway around the world. You don’t know how passionate they are about their football club. Maybe they only started supporting it in the last year or two, but that doesn’t change who they are.”
Postecoglou confirmed that Radu Dragusin, Genoa’s January signing, will make his first Premier League start at Fulham on Saturday, replacing Mickey van de Ven in central defence. It is expected that Van de Ven will have recovered from a hamstring problem at the end of the international break.
Tottenham’s match against Fulham comes almost a year after former manager Antonio Conte (pictured) launched a scathing attack on his team
Postecoglou quickly shut down all talk of Conte ahead of the Fulham game
The match comes almost a year after Antonio Conte, the previous manager, launched a furious attack on his players after a 3-3 draw with Southampton.
Conte called them “selfish” but most have blossomed under Postecoglou, who said: “I didn’t have to look at the past, or what happened last year, or the year before, or what happened in the last ten or fifteen years ago.
“All I wanted to see from the day I started was how people evolved in the environment I created.”
