Article today about West Ham charging parents £700 for their kids to be a match day mascot. Surprised any club could stoop to profiteer from something like that & a shame because that would almost certainly exclude children from less well off households. Always thought it was done for community benefit & allocated by lottery. https://www.theguardian.com/football/blog/2019/jan/07/mascot-fees-premier-league-clubs Anyone here know if we charge?
We charge £250. I don't know if a free full kit is included, but it is still wrong. It should be done for nothing through a lottery.
Agreed. The club should donate the money to some cause they believe in and heavily publicise the fact so people know and don't wrongly assume they don't.
Or maybe not charge at all and let it be an honour, maybe a reward for some particularly good or helpful behaviour or something to inspire a kid who has had a bad time through illness or whatever. It's things like this that mean that when people talk about the 'reputation' of football or 'football is the winner' I tend to think, what utter carp.
I don't disagree. But what the club are doing, in terms of giving the money to the Trust, isn't 'wrong' as it was described earlier in the thread and should not be tarred with the same brush as others.
True, but a £250 charge still out-prices quite a significant proportion of families. If they were to do a lottery and invite the winning parents to make a donation, they offer what they can afford. It's not as if the club can't afford it these days!
Yep and I wouldn’t try t0. But why £250? That surely restricts the potential pool quite substantially?
Doesn't matter how much it is, it's a closed shop at Watford. It seems you can only do it if you know someone at the club.