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United fans upset by ticket price increases

Manchester United fans have branded a 5 per cent increase in season-ticket prices as “offensive” and claimed that the Glazer family should be dipping into their own pockets to help ease the club’s financial problems instead.

A week after Sir Jim Ratcliffe, the Ineos chairman and United co-owner, said that the club would have run out of money this year if he had not injected £230million, they announced a season-ticket hike of 5 per cent for the third consecutive season.

For the 2025-26 campaign, an adult season ticket at Old Trafford will cost from £608 to £1,121. United said that season-ticket holders would pay on average £2.50 more per game.

Prices for under-16s have been frozen but the club have slashed OAP discounts from 50 per cent to 25 per cent and for the first time, games for non-season-ticket holders will be categorised, with bigger matches against rivals and neighbours costing more.

Before last year, United had frozen season-ticket prices for 11 consecutive seasons, but Omar Berrada, the club’s chief executive, cited an increase in “operational costs” — such as rising energy prices — and the club’s “financial issues” as the reason why they were asking fans to fork out, even though they have endured a terrible season.

As part of Ineos’s drive to raise more revenue, a few hundred fans who sit near the dugouts will be turfed out and moved elsewhere because United have realised they can sell those seats for several times their present price as part of a hospitality package.

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