Last season when I wrote about the ticket allocation split at Hampden I got a lot of angry responses from people who maintain that both clubs at a semi final or final deserve a 50/50 split on the tickets. I made one prediction; that this was a rule Sevco would never have to live by. There was just no way. Last season we spared finding out by the simple fact both of their semi-finals were against us and we took care of them on those occasions.
Yesterday I got exactly the proof I expected. Sevco’s cup semi final allocation is a whopping four fifths of the National Stadium; their “neutral venue” game has been turned into a home tie. I don’t know whether Motherwell simply accepted this or whether they are now rolling over after the fact; it’s not our concern. If their club is happy handing their cup semi final opponents three sides of the ground that’s their own lookout … but as per usual we get no such treatment.
Hibs will split the tickets 50/50 with us. No home crowd advantage for either team.
Just the way it should be, right?
Yeah except of course not.
Whoever put this together knew how it would look.
They knew exactly what the response of fans would be, and as per usual they don’t give a damn.
Something that looks this reeking can’t be anything but what it is and I don’t particularly care whether it was Motherwell themselves who said “give them four times more tickets than us” or whether the SPFL and/or SFA decided it should be this way, but from now on I don’t want to hear any of that “in the interests of fairness” garbage from anyone, because our governing bodies don’t know what the term means.
Some people will view this decision as yet another reason why Celtic fans should boycott the fixture and Hampden as a whole. Good luck selling that one. I have given up on the whole idea that enough of our fans can be convinced to miss games for the greater good. Even the briefest chats with people reveals that it just won’t happen. The surest way to bring about real change is shut off, the door closed and locked and it will forever stay that way.
So Celtic fans will pay an average of £35 a ticket to watch a semi-final based on merit whilst the other has already been virtually conceded by one of the teams, because Motherwell were advertising their 10,000 tickets yesterday without a word of complaint.
They’ve embraced their “wee team” status – against the team 5th in the SPL – before a ball is even kicked.
How much longer will people be content to put up with this?