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Liverpool's US owners scrap plan for highest priced tickets

Xinhua, February 11, 2016 Adjust font size:

Liverpool FC's US-based owners Wednesday night scrapped plans to increase the cost of the highest paid tickets for fans to watch their Anfield heroes.

In a message to fans, owner John W Henry, chairman Tom Werner and president Mike Gordon apoligised to fans for the distress caused by the announcement of the higher prices, and admitted 'we got the message'.

It follows the protest by thousands of fans to walk out of the world famous Anfield stadium at precisely 77 minutes into the weekend match, indicating their view on the proposed 77 pounds ticket (112 U.S.dollars). The highest priced ticket will now be 59 pounds (just under 86 dollars).

Leaders of LFC fan clubs said fans at other clubs had offered to stage similar walk-outs to protest over high ticket prices in the game.

The higher prices was raised by one politician in the British parliament, Liverpool Mayor Joe Anderson (a fan of rival city club Everton) backed the protest.

And Jeremy Corbyn, the leader of Britain's main opposition Labor Party was celebrating, saying on social media: Lverpool FC ticket prices frozen for two seasons. After 77 minute walk out on Saturday. Great to see people power working."

Anfield legend Jamie Carragher described the announced as a great decision by the club and great news for fans.

In their statement, posted on the club's website, the owners said: "It has been a tumultuous week. On behalf of everyone at Fenway Sports Group and Liverpool Football Club, we would like to apologise for the distress caused by our ticket pricing plan for the 2016-17 season.

"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.

"From our first days as owners we have understood that serving as custodians of this incredible institution is a distinct privilege and as such, we have been driven solely by the desire to return LFC to the pinnacle of football. In the world of modern football, growing the club in a sustainable way is essential to realising this objective.

"To that end, we have never taken a single penny out of the football club. Instead we have injected vast sums of our own money to improve the playing squad and modernise LFC's infrastructure - exemplified by the 120million pounds advance from FSG to build the new Main Stand."

They said they got wrong part of the ticketing plans for the 2016-17 season, even though they had thought the highest priced tickets would be affordable to some fans, with the extra cash earmarked to help repay the advance given to build the new expanded stand.

"The widespread opposition to this element of the plan has made it clear that we were mistaken," they said, adding...'message received'. They also announced that the highest priced season tickets would also remain unchanged, promising to hold all ticket prices for the coming two football seasons. Enditem