Brighton charging fans £20 for cardboard cutouts in the East Upper

Brighton & Hove Albion have confirmed that fans can have cardboard cutouts of themselves placed in the upper tier of the Amex Stadium East Stand for the final five home games of the Premier League season – for £20.

The ‘offer’ is only open to season ticket holders and MyAlbion+ members. By restricting those who can submit cardboard cutouts, the club will hoping they can ensure that nobody tries to sneak a megalomaniac dictator or a serial killer into the Amex.

A similar scheme in Australia turned sour when rugby games featured a number of interesting characters. Adolf Hitler and Harold Shipman were caught in the stands at NRL matches by the television cameras while Dominic Cummings also made the 9443 mile journey down under, presumably to test his eyesight.

Many Brighton fans have questioned the point in paying to have cardboard cutouts placed where nobody will be able to see them.

Sadly, the Albion don’t have much choice in the matter. The Premier League have commandeered the bottom tiers of empty stadiums for their own branding.

The cost has also caused many Seagulls supporters to balk. £20 seems a lot to pay for a piece of card which won’t ever be picked up by the television cameras, but perhaps we shouldn’t be surprised given that the Albion would try and sell us our own grandmothers if it was possible to raise a couple of quid.

The club have said that a percentage of the profits will be donated to the Albion as One Fund. There is no indication as to what that percentage will be, but it seems likely that the cardboard cutout scheme has been devised to deliver a profit for Brighton.

Some of the comments in relation to the scheme have been wonderful. One supporter questioned whether a photo of a supporter with a bottle top will be allowed and others whether the cardboard cutouts would be removed on 80 minutes to create an authentic matchday experience.

There were plenty of the predictable “The cardboard cutouts will make more noise than the normal East Stand” jibes too. Which fits in very nicely with our piece from last week about how an empty Amex Stadium might be beneficial to the Albion’s survival hopes.

The most common reaction however has been that the club trying to make money from supporters in this manner is another sign of how out of touch they currently are.

Last week, Brighton were trying to trademark the 2,600-year-old word Albion to monetise it. This week, we’ve got them charging fans £20 for a cardboard cutout of themselves that nobody will ever see.

But as much as we enjoy mocking the cardboard cutout idea, nobody is being forced to take part. If a fellow Albion fan wants to fork out twenty notes for a paper version of themselves to stand watch over the final five home games of the season, then who are we to judge?

And on that note, we’re off to find a way to sneak Rolf Harris in…

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