EPL club Liverpool’s owner, Fenway Sports Group, has "performed a major U-turn over its planned ticket price rises and issued a public apology to supporters who felt compelled to walk out of Saturday’s game against Sunderland," according to Andy Hunter of the GUARDIAN. The compromise that Liverpool manager Jürgen Klopp had called for "has resulted in general admission prices being frozen" at '15-16 levels for the next two seasons, the "removal of game categorisations and the number of [US$13] tickets being increased to 10,000 across a Premier League campaign." Liverpool Principal Owner John Henry, Chair Tom Werner and FSG President Mike Gordon in a letter to fans wrote that there was a "'part of the ticketing plan we got wrong' and that it was the strength of opposition to their proposals that forced the rethink." An estimated 10,000 fans "left Anfield in the 77th minute of last Saturday’s match" following chants of "'You greedy bastards, enough is enough'" (GUARDIAN, 2/11). Henry, Werner and Gordon wrote, "The three of us have been particularly troubled by the perception that we don’t care about our supporters, that we are greedy, and that we are attempting to extract personal profits at the club’s expense. Quite the opposite is true." The letter stated that the hike in ticket prices "was designed to improve the on-field product as well as to build a new grandstand" expected to open in August (PROVIDENCE JOURNAL, 2/11).
