No “Solution” To The Ibrox Ticket Standoff Can Be Entertained Before The Celtic Park Game.

So tomorrow our team rolls into Ibrox without the presence of a single Celtic fan in the ground.

We’ve known this for many weeks now, and in fact months, but the reality of it will only start to really hit home when the players take the pitch without a single supporter to cheer them on. That disadvantages us. A lot or a little?

A little might be a lot in the present circumstances and so it will definitely have an effect.

Which will suit the home club right down to the ground.

In the aftermath of this game, I can make a very simple prediction; the drums will start banging that away fans are too important, that we can’t possibly have the match at Celtic Park played without any, and suddenly the media will be putting pressure on the governing bodies finally to step in and “give us our derby back.”

Just in time to make sure they don’t suffer the same disadvantage that we will, of course.

Which is why any “discussion” about this subject should not be taking place until after the New Year game is done. There will be two derbies left. There will be plenty of time for getting round the table and for putting something in place that will restore some sanity. Next season. There can be no question of any agreement being reached which impacts this one.

Our fans aren’t going back to Ibrox under the current conditions.

They can’t give us anything like our due allocation without it impacting their own season ticket holders, so they’re going to need to give those guys some notice that things will be changing in the next campaign.

And as our fans won’t be in their ground, I don’t expect that theirs will be in ours.

I feel about this the same way those inside Celtic do; this will end with a minimum ticket guarantee across the boards, something written into the SPFL rules and regulations.

Clubs can come together where there is common ground and a genuine desire to ensure fan safety, but the raw numbers, the minimum allocations, should be right there in the book; a flat 10%, and if they can give us 5000 tickets then they can certainly give us back that stand, and it will probably be safter for them to do exactly that.

Before you know it, we’ll have 7000 each.

But until we’ve treated their team to a Celtic Park full house without a single one of their fans in the ground, there’s nothing to talk about. I was never in favour of banning their fans from Parkhead just because we have safety concerns about Ibrox; I think it makes them look like a deplorable organisation without scruples or regard for our safety, and it reveals them as hypocrites and liars.

But if our club has decided to do it then I support that and in sporting terms, it’s really the only fair thing to do. We, after all, are not boycotting their ground out of spite or pique … we’re doing it because they are willing to place us in harm’s way to accommodate their own lunatic fringe. We shouldn’t be disadvantaged for refusing to accept that.

So once this game is out of the way, look out for a change in the way this matter is being dealt with in the media, and since our club has remained silent and played its cards close up until now, we should simply let them continue doing so for a little longer.

Until we declare a position, the SPFL can’t act. So let’s not declare a position, let’s leave it up in the air, let’s drag this out another couple of months until closer to the game. Then we announce that their fans are banned, we tell the SPFL to do its worst … but at the same time, call for talks intended to end this matter once and for all.

I think they’d all come begging to the table.

And if they don’t, let them be the one club standing on the outside looking in whilst the rest of us get on with hammering out an agreement which gives away fans the rights to watch their team.