Celtic has just released a statement saying the SFA has informed us that we are getting FEWER Scottish Cup Final tickets than Aberdeen. Your first reaction upon hearing news like this is to laugh and check that it isn’t 1 April. Because this is a piss-take, right?
This is someone having a laugh, right? I mean, it’s got to be, yeah?
But it’s not.
This is the SFA at its spiteful worst.
Celtic’s statement says they’ve done “all they can” to get parity here.
It says we’ve suggested various compromises.
That all have been rebuffed.
What does that tell you? What does it mean?
When a club that could have filled Hampden ten times over is bent over like this and a bigger ticket allocation is handed to one who couldn’t fill their own end for the semi-final and who’s average attendance in a league game is ten thousand below their own capacity that’s not a quirk or a mistake or just “one of those things”; it’s a message, a clear-cut one.
Someone at the SFA thinks they can take a great big piss on us.
Which means we’re not respected.
And if we tolerate this we don’t deserve to be.
In that regard, Celtic’s statement does nothing for me whatsoever; it’s empty rhetoric and it will remain that unless we do more than just express our frustration.
For openers, it should have come with a very clear warning to the SFA over this issue.
Celtic should make it clear that if we’re getting less than they are that we’ll not take one extra ticket above that allocation, and in that event if Aberdeen can’t sell what they’ve got then every unsold seat should remain empty.
Let the embarrassment belong to the SFA for taking such a scandalous decision.
Let them and Aberdeen fight over who picks up the tab.
Hit them where it hurts; in the pocket.
Otherwise we’re wearing this like a brightly coloured ribbon that says “mugs.”
I know that would rob some of our fans of a chance to see this game who would otherwise be there, but really, isn’t it time for something like this? They’ve done this explicitly because they know so many of our supporters want tickets for the match … it is a blatant slap in the face to all of us.
And we either hit back or we’re begging them to do it again, or something worse.
This isn’t about the tickets themselves, or the number of them. Our club attempted to mediate this. They tried to get fairness. And we were told to beat it. I don’t know what other way you can put it than that this is a calculated insult. And our club knows it is. Which is why they issued the statement.
In any event, refusing to take any further tickets can’t be where this matter is allowed to end.
Beyond that we’ve got to get real about getting shot of the kind of people who would make such a scandalous, petty, spiteful decision. The idea of leaving them in positions of influence … it’s idiotic and dangerous.
It is plain unacceptable.
I’m tired of poking my club with a stick over SFA reform.
The longer our board pretends that things are alright at Hampden the more we’ll get stuck with garbage like this; I can’t conclude other than that part of the blame for this lies with ourselves for not cleaning out that place a long time ago. We ask for days like today, because we tolerate stuff we shouldn’t.
For all our alleged “influence” this is what they think of us.
If we accept it, then we deserve all we get.
