Almost a week after the announcement, the great debate about Champions League prices still rages. Actually, it isn’t much of a debate because hardly anyone is defending them. More about that later.

The prices are outrageous, but then again so is modern football at almost every level. League One club Birmingham City are charging £35 for their European campaign and even Solihull Moors charge £21. Villa, though, have taken profiteering to new heights.

The arguments have been raging since the announcement and positions are as entrenched as when the news broke. The media have been solidly sympathetic, supporter groups are outraged and there’s talk of protests against Everton, much good they’re likely to do.

Our problem is symptomatic of a wider problem in football. Some years ago, when Manchester United supporters started to protest against the Glazers, it was said that there was a battle raging for the soul of the club. That’s now widened to include most of top-level football, including the Villa. There is a battle for the club, and what makes it difficult is that while the stakes are high, the two sides are unequal. On the one side are the traditional supporters, who I would guess include most of the H&V readership in all its miseryarsed glory. We want the Villa to do well but not at the cost of unfeasibly high prices and a sterile atmosphere.

On the other side are the new breed of supporters, who can afford the higher costs, who want working toilets and comfort and don’t seem too bothered about much beyond polite applause and clapping along to the PA. You know which side the club’s hierarchy, the TV companies and the Premier League are on.

There’s also the problem of choosing your targets. Chris Heck has come in for some fearful abuse and he deserves most of it, but one thing that we don’t know is what his remit is and what the owners think of his work. NSWE have been the perfect owners but they’re not here for the good of their health. Eventually they’ll want to see a return on their investment and to do that they have to increase turnover. However much goodwill they enjoy – and they’re still the ultimate reason why we’re playing Bayern Munich and Juventus in the first place – they shouldn’t be exempt from criticism if they approve of putting moneymaking by all means necessary above treating us decently. But that’s all conjecture.

There are, however, a few absolute certainties in this whole sorry saga. From the day Dean Smith was appointed everyone at the club was solidly united. Except for one Gerrard-shaped abberation we’ve all been in it together, all sharing a madcap, thrilling, unbelivable journey. That seems to have gone now. So many things have alienated suporters, from overflowing toilets and rows of seats that don’t exist to scandalous disabled parking charges and refusals to issue season cards, that it’s difficult to see how the Villa can regain that belief of us all being on the same side.

Another annoyance is how small-minded the whole affair makes us look. Jacking the prices up is the sort of thing that Walsall would do if they got drawn at home to Liverpool in the FA Cup. It’ a one-off opportunity to make as much as they can because games like that don’t come up every year when you’re in League One. On the other hand, we’re aiming to be regulars in the Champions League yet we’re behaving as though we have to make the most of it because it won’t happen again. That old Villa failing, of acting like we don’t belong, has come back to the fore.