BIAS have been working with the Club over the past couple of seasons to establish whether the current system of prioritising tickets for away games is as fair and equitable for all fans of Brentford FC as possible.
Today’s announcement by the club to change how TAPs are accumulated is the result of these discussions and the changes are designed to reward supporters who continue to regularly support the Club both home and away throughout the season.
We recognise that this change may result in a number of our longest standing supporters losing TAPs, but based on data provided by the Club these changes should prevent those who continue to attend games both home and away from being disadvantaged by this change. This is because the new system has been designed to ensure that the majority of fans who have long attended away games are at the same level of priority for away tickets as before, while improving the access to away tickets for more recent fans who regularly wish to travel to away games.
We have worked with the Club to introduce safeguards through a documented exceptions process, and we feel that this will protect supporters who through personal circumstances cannot attend as many games as they would wish over an extended period but who will want to return to doing so as soon as those circumstances change eg. through sickness.
Whilst we recognise that there will be some anger about the loss of TAPs that have been earned through supporting the Bees before our time in the Premier League, TAPs were introduced to provide priority for home and away tickets (including cup games) to supporters who most regularly attend away games.
All supporters will be impacted by this change to greater or lesser extent (including BIAS committee members). However, we support this change as refocusing TAPs on those who have continued their support and intend to keep attending more games in the future will help to grow our fan base and reward the next generation of fans.
As BIAS, we support all Brentford supporters, and feel it is important that the changes announced today will encourage younger fans to have the chance to obtain tickets to away games whilst ensuring supporters who regularly support the Club are not unfairly treated as a result of this change.
We encourage all fans to read the direct email communication planned to be sent by the Club later this week. This will outline how you individually are impacted.