Blog: Villa need money, I've signed up for next season - let's hope for improvement or fans will be leaving

As I wrote on my website, Aston Villa Life, I've just renewed my season ticket for next year. Some might think this makes me a masochist, as though I'm a sucker for punishment when it comes to watching football. Looking at the results over the past few seasons, it would be hard to argue otherwise.

In the piece on AVL, I took the angle that Aston Villa is one of my loves in life - and that loves can't easily be dumped, regardless of how bad it gets. However, for this piece, I wanted to look at it from the opposite angle and ask if people like me is actually part of the problem.

As long suffering fans know, recent seasons have been poor, the result of a combination of a history of expensive mishaps combined with austerity in the more recent past. As a result, we've seen Villa become something of a depleted force, both in terms of losing some of their best players over the course of Randy Lerner's ownership, but also finding themselves shopping at the cheaper end of the market.

The ticket prices for games, however, have not reflected this lack of investment. In fact, over the course of recent seasons where Villa have finished in the bottom five or six, season tickets have gone up - from £580 for my seat during the Alex McLeish season to £615 for next year.

No, £35 isn't a massive amount of money, and Villa still remain one of the cheapest teams in the Premier League to support, but I struggle to think of any other industry where a business could retain customers when prices increase but quality decreases.

In a sense, many fans think the club are taking advantage of those of us who attend every season, leaving us like the innocent puppy following around his master, despite him paying no interest at all.

It is because of this that fans consider not renewing one of the few things they can do to exercise some influence on the situation. With Villa already in the swing of marketing the next exciting campaign - a description many may find hard to swallow - one has to ask whether the game has lost its soul.

In reality, we could probably argue that football, or at least the top flight, lost its soul years ago, as Sky money flooded the league with massive amounts of money. Whilst many star players have graced the Premier League stage, one could also argue that such stars are in the minority, instead causing massive scale increases in the cost of purchasing players.

For Villa, a club who have had two cup wins in the Premier League era - and both of them almost two decades ago - it has been a case of falling behind. Sure, Villa have placed in high positions on several occasions, but here is a club that has a massive financial disadvantage compared to those with higher turnovers.

The fix? Villa need to raise as much money as possible, as well as staying in the top flight. The issue with regard to fan disenfranchisement arises when we realise just how much that money is broken down - much of it is supplied by those who don't even attend.

So, with that in mind, we have to ask how we've got to a situation where a club like Villa are more reliant - at least in terms of percentage of overall turnover - on TV money than they are on the money generated at the ground by the fans.

The sheer amount of money received in TV money from Sky - estimated to be around £80m for the club this season - would be the equivalent of over 130,000 season tickets at the price I am paying to attend next year.

Of course, Villa don't have 130,000 seats, and neither do they charge £615 for every season ticket. However, it illustrates the comparatively small influence season ticket sales could have on the club's revenue.

Which makes me wonder this - what kind of a world are we living in when season tickets comparise such a small amount of revenue? Have we begun to see the death of the club being something the fans own as an entity - even if only psychologically - or is that something that happened years ago?

So when I consider whether I am part of the problem by renewing, I have to say I don't think so. Whilst £615 may well be poor value if we look at Villa's last few campaigns, it is a drop in the ocean. Sure, the management might have to ask serious questions of themselves if Villa's stadium attendance drops dramatically, the reality is that survival - any kind and at any quality - is paramount.

Which, if I'm honest, is yet another reason why I grow increasingly apathetic about both Premier League football and Villa. When the price of survival is so high, and the Premier League has over half of the table still risking relegation, is it any surprise we've ended up with a dour product, with more excitement and attacking in the league below?

Don't get me wrong - I don't want Villa to go down simply to win more games (that would be counter-productive of course) but I do wonder how long the club can keep up their current state without either alienating their support, continually risking relegation or a combination of both.

So as I sign up for yet another year of attending games, I may well be in the minority renewing early. For fans, whether they choose to attend or not, there's a growing feeling that things must change at the club.

Can they change for the better? We will see once the transfer window shuts in August - assuming that Villa survive of course - but yet another season of apathetic and bland football may well be the final nail in the coffin that sends entire generations of fans away from the club for good.

You can follow Matt Turvey's regular opinions at his own site, Aston Villa Life at http://www.astonvillalife.com, via the site's Twitter account @astonvillalife, or via his own Twitter account @mturvey_star.