A sports finance expert believes Manchester United could earn at least an extra £20million a season through their decision to hike ticket prices.

The club has faced backlash from supporters over the past week after announcing that matchday tickets would increase to £66 and that concessions were being removed until the end of the season.

The Manchester United Supporters’ Trust called the decision “a disgrace”, adding in a statement: “The scale of the increase to individual fans is at a level never seen before - as much as a 40 per cent increase for adults and 164% for kids.” A separate fan protest was held prior to Sunday's home match against Everton.

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United have said the rise in price will put them “on a stronger financial footing” going forward. The club revealed it had recorded net losses of £133m for the year ending June 30 in September.

Minority shareholder Sir Jim Ratcliffe has been on a cost-cutting exercise since his arrival, which has included the deeply popular move of axing 250 staff jobs. The redundancy programme cost the club £8.6million, financial figures published last week reveal.

United have meanwhile incurred around £35m in compensation fees to acquire sporting director Dan Ashworth and new head coach Ruben Amorim, and to sack Erik ten Hag. A package was also agreed with Southampton for technical director Jason Wilcox this summer.

Dr Rob Wilson, Professor of Applied Sports Finance at Sheffield Hallam University, believes a ticket fee increase of £15 alone would have raked in more than £20m of extra cash for United, albeit the actual rise in price for many is higher.

“If Manchester United want to increase their revenues, in this case matchday revenues, they will have to increase their ticket prices and that’s what we’ve seen,” Dr Wilson argued, as per OLBG.

“Most Premier League clubs have tried to keep a lid on that for a long time but it’s not sustainable when the PSR calculations are becoming increasingly more difficult to adhere to. And the reality is that extra money generated on match days through ticket prices can help fund player acquisition and player wages.

“Not to the extent that Manchester United will be able to buy a new striker with that money, but it will help toward overall running costs. Putting prices up by £10 to £15 will be around £2million a game and around £20million across a season.”

Dr Wilson added: “In the context of overall revenue for a club of that size it’s not massive, but with the costs of staff and other things going up, it’s a way of offsetting that cost.

“It wouldn't surprise me in the slightest if the increase in ticket prices at clubs like Manchester United, or Liverpool or Chelsea for instance, is actually offset against the increasing costs, so they're actually at a break even point and not overly subsidising.”

In an email to supporters in response to the criticism received, United said the cash would be used towards club infrastructure and investment into football matters.

It said: "As a club, we have been focused on cost saving to put us on a stronger financial footing. This means having to make very hard decisions, including a significant reduction in our staff numbers.

“It also means looking for opportunities to increase our revenues so we can continue to invest in football and infrastructure. We have now sold over 97 per cent of tickets this season, many of which were at a discounted rate.

“We are implementing some policy changes for matches that have already sold out, where only small numbers of tickets will be released."