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Read Paul Barber's Bournemouth programme notes

The Albion deputy chairman and chief executive talks tickets and the transfer window.

By Paul Barber • 05 February 2023

By Paul Hazlewood
Paul Barber was made an OBE in the New Year's Honours earlier this year.

It is the first time we have faced the Cherries at the Amex since December 2019, and we extend our welcome to our visitors’ new owner, Bill Foley, and to the club’s players, staff, and fans who have made the trip along the south coast today. 

It’s been a special start to 2023 for our club. Five matches, four wins – including successive home victories over Liverpool – 16 goals scored, progress to The FA Cup fifth round, and, at the time of writing, we sit in sixth place in the Premier League. Has there ever been a better January for the Men’s First Team? 

All this said, everyone here is acutely aware that we’re still only halfway through our season. We haven’t achieved anything yet and, with 19 league matches left to play, and we hope more than one additional FA Cup match too, there is still plenty of football ahead of us – starting with today’s match against Bournemouth, which won’t be easy.

Our busy start to 2023 has also seen us navigate another transfer window. This time around the media’s biggest focus, as far as our club was concerned, was players out rather than players in. In this regard, we said goodbye and thanks to Leandro Trossard, who left for Arsenal, and Shane Duffy, whose loan to Fulham was made permanent. 

By Paul Hazlewood
Leandro Trossard and Shane Duffy departed in permanent moves in January.

At 28 and 31 years of age respectively, Leo and Shane served our club well making over 270 appearances between them. Leo contributed significantly to our progress in the Premier League under Graham Potter, while Shane was an important figure in our promotion season and our opening Premier League campaigns. We wish them well. 

And, of course, much news was made of the attempts to lure Moises Caicedo away from our club. We have always accepted that our best players (and staff) will be of interest to, and, ultimately, become targets for, other clubs when we and they do well. However, we have also been clear that any departures have to be on terms and at times that suit us. 

Moises has been superb for our club since breaking into the first team towards the end of last season. It was, therefore, inevitable that he would be a player on the radar of some of the biggest clubs in the country and beyond. In these moments, it’s vital the player receives the best possible advice from everyone around him. 

We have also always been very clear that January is not a window in which we like to do much, if any, business and particularly if it means we have to find replacements for players that leave. It’s typically a seller’s market, so buying is always difficult for anyone, but it’s only a seller’s market if the seller is willing. In the case of Moises, we were not. 

By Paul Hazlewood
Moises Caicedo was back in training on Wednesday.

Moises is a fantastic young player, and a very popular lad around the club. He has a huge future ahead of him, but for now he is really important to us, so I know our fans will get behind him for the second half of the season. Agents and journalists all have jobs to do, but so do players. So, with the window now closed, we can all focus on the football. 

Off the field, you will have seen the action we have taken against a number of ticket touts that had infiltrated the club’s membership scheme in order to secure tickets to matches at the Amex, which in turn has contributed significantly to numerous visiting supporters popping up in home general admission areas.

Credit is due to our supporter services team, and our operations staff, for their work on this issue, and also to our fans for providing us with valuable information that has helped us to directly address the matter, and has also ensured we have been able to provide as much information as possible to Sussex Police. 

With numerous big matches at the Amex in the first half of the season, it’s also been clear that a small number of our own fans have passed on or sold tickets to visiting supporters, creating unnecessary and unwelcome tension in home general admission areas. This is unacceptable and places home supporters at risk. 

We will continue to do all we can to make season tickets as accessible and affordable to as many people as possible, by maintaining our interest- and fee-free payment plans, the inclusion of subsidised travel, and ensuring we maintain our various authorised season ticket flexibility schemes which allow supporters to recover money for matches they can’t attend.
Paul Barber

As we have repeatedly warned, the unauthorised sale – or even transfer without money changing hands – of tickets to football matches is not only a contravention of our terms and conditions but is also a criminal offence in the UK. We will, therefore, continue to take strong action against anyone that continues to do this despite our regular warnings. 

We also launch our season ticket renewal pricing for the 2023/24 season on Monday. Despite the highest inflationary environment most people can remember, and three years without a price rise, increases are limited to an average of around 4%, which typically works out at around £1–£2 per match for adults and less than £1 per match for children. 

We will continue to do all we can to make season tickets as accessible and affordable to as many people as possible, by maintaining our interest- and fee-free payment plans, the inclusion of subsidised travel, and ensuring we maintain our various authorised season ticket flexibility schemes which allow supporters to recover money for matches they can’t attend. 

In this regard, the season ticket exchange scheme has opened for every home match this season – except Leeds United’s visit – and has seen more than 10,000 season ticket re-sales which, in turn, has seen us return over £300,000 to supporters who couldn’t attend matches this season, while helping to fill seats across the stadium with more support for the team. 

Nobody likes prices rising in any area of their life, least of all for attending football matches, but unfortunately the club, whilst avoiding increases to season ticket prices for three years now, has not been immune to the numerous inflationary pressures we have all been facing, including significantly higher energy and transport costs to name just two. 

The support we have received since moving to the Amex 12 seasons ago has been magnificent and, although the stadium has increased capacity several times in this period, we have continued to grow both our season ticket numbers and the club’s overall fan base while also expanding and selling out our 1901 Club for their successive five-year periods. 

This is a great period to be an Albion fan, and we look forward to welcoming you back to the stadium throughout the remainder of this season and next.

Thank you for your support. 

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