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Ticketing pricing problems have been suggested as an issue behind dwindling crowds, ahead of Aston Villa’s clash with Bayern Munich in Hong Kong. BILD report on the situation today, with Bayern executives taking stock of their Asia tour before flying from Munich today. Aston Villa clash The newspaper reports that Bayern are viewing the tour – which sees them take on Aston Villa today – in an extremely positive light. That’s despite the first clash against Jeju SK not being sold out and the Aston Villa tie following suit. That’s an issue that Marketing Director Rouven Kasper was asked directly about today. He was playing it down. “Normally, stadiums are full when we travel somewhere, I wouldn’t dispute that,” he said. “However, it is quite interesting to see that none of the pre-season matches this summer (in Asia) are sold out. If we look at the games from the past few days, including the one in Seoul, they are all at roughly the same level.” Ticket price issues BILD state that Bayern had expected a full house for the game against Jeju, but parts of the stadium remained empty. The game against Aston Villa is expected to be similar, with Kasper watching closely. “I’m curious to see what happens in these final stages, but we’re looking at an attendance of between 30,000 and 45,000,” he added. “Hong Kong hasn’t managed to sell out the stadium in recent years, either. We need to review things afterwards to see what we could do better. We’ve done a lot of promotion and there is media interest, but we need to look into this further.” BILD think that they have the answer, though. They reports that ‘steep pricing’ on tickets has scared away potential buyers. According to them, tickets for the Aston Villa game cost between €42 and €296. The promoter responsible for setting the prices in Korea has already faced criticism over the high costs there as well.