Stevenage Football Club will issue news on Season Tickets for 2020/21 within the next 7-10 days...
Chairman Phil Wallace said, "We have had to sit on our hands until we had some idea how many tickets we would be allowed to sell, even though the Club desperately needs the income. Until we had a feel for the government’s plans in terms of permitted capacity, we didn’t want to be in the position that we had sold tickets that were in excess of our new capacity.
"Although there’s still no definitive answer on this, we now have enough information from the EFL and safety groups to have an educated guess at the restricted capacity, which we believe will be on a stadium by stadium basis and require sanctioning by the safety group.
"At this moment we don’t know which league we will be playing in and when. If we are in the EFL then we know we will start on the 12th September behind closed doors, with streaming, but the National League start date of 3rd October may depend upon when crowds can go back to matches.
"To have any chance of the Club remaining financially viable, we will have to look closely at how we price tickets this season in terms of discounted tickets as we have to do what we can to ensure the Club survives what are sure to be incredibly difficult months ahead.
"With streaming income and the central distributions in the EFL, I am not concerned about our short term survival. However, if we are expelled into the National League with EFL carry costs, lose half of our central funding and are then unable to play in front of paying crowds, then despite our financial strength going into this period, the Club will be in a precarious position before the end of the year.
"We have signed seven new players and taken one on loan for the season, so we have a the base of a team whichever division we are in, but if we can’t play football with income, I don’t know how long we will last. Not long I suspect.
"We stated previously that since our capacity will be seriously limited, we will prioritise the way we issue Season Tickets for the 2020/21 season. However, anyone that buys a Season Ticket will be expecting to watch a full schedule of league games and we guarantee that if we have to play behind closed doors, unless we can provide a streaming service as part of the Season Ticket, we will provide credits for future games."
The list of priority purchase of Season Tickets in 2020/21 will be offered as follows:
- Group 1 – All Shareholders and 2019/20 Season Ticket Holders that donated their credit back to the Club (Option A)
- Group 2 – All 2019/20 Season Ticket Holders who wished to apply last season's credit to their new Season Ticket (Option B)
- Group 3 - All 2019/20 Season Ticket Holders who opted to receive individual match tickets and now wish to purchase a new Season Ticket (Option C)
- Group 4 – Bondholders
- Group 5 – Supporter Association Members
- Group 6 - General Sale on a first come, first served basis
CEO Alex Tunbridge said, "It is likely that every game in season 2020/21 will be All Ticket and we expect that our Season Ticket Sales will take up 100% of our reduced stadium capacity, but until we know the grouping of those seats – in other words who will buy in household bubbles of two seats or more - we won’t be able to fix the exact capacity.
"We are hoping to put a new online platform in place so we can handle prioritised sales online, but we will also provide a day for each group to order and pay at the Ticket Office if they don’t have access to online booking."
More details about prices and how to buy will be released in due course.
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