The SFA’s grubby Celtic ticket “U-turn” is nothing but a transparent, cynical con.

If you spend long enough studying politics, working on the periphery of political campaigns, or even right in the thick of them—if you’re lucky enough to experience that once or twice in your life—you’ll recognise a U-turn anywhere. The U-turn has been a part of political strategy since the very first days of politics itself.

The U-turn is much reviled. It is mocked, criticised, and held up as a sign of weakness and failure. But in truth, it need not be any of those things.

A U-turn is often not a sign of weakness at all; it can, in fact, be a sign of strength. It is not always a sign of failure either; it is proof that a political party or organisation has listened to the people who matter—the customers, the voters, the fans.

There is nothing inherently wrong with a U-turn.

Any political organisation, or indeed any organisation worth its salt, that claims it will never make a U-turn, or has never made one, is lying to itself.

Because the U-turn is a necessary evil—and sometimes, it’s not even evil at all. Some of the biggest U-turns in history have turned out to be among the best decisions political parties, companies, and institutions have ever made. They have, in many cases, been the foundation stones of future success.

U-turns in politics and business are often portrayed as humiliating failures, but the reality is more complex. Sometimes, a change of course is necessary. The best U-turns—the ones history remembers positively—are made when leaders recognise that a mistake has been made and act decisively to correct it.

History gives us plenty of examples of U-turns done right. One of the most famous comes from Franklin D. Roosevelt, who campaigned in 1932 on a pledge to maintain the Gold Standard. Once in office, however, he saw firsthand how it was strangling the economy during the Great Depression.

He swiftly abandoned it, allowing the economy to expand and putting the US on the path to recovery. Critics at the time called it reckless, but in hindsight, it was one of the boldest and most successful policy reversals of the 20th century.

Then there’s the Good Friday Agreement, and this is a particularly notable example.

For decades, British governments refused to negotiate with Sinn Féin or the IRA, with Margaret Thatcher famously declaring that “we do not negotiate with terrorists.”

But by the 1990s, it had become clear that a political solution was the only way to end the conflict. John Major’s government began tentative discussions, and when Tony Blair came to power, he committed fully to the peace process, securing one of the most significant political agreements in British and Irish history. It was a dramatic reversal of long-standing policy—but it was the right one.

Unfortunately, that’s not what we’ve just witnessed from the Scottish Football Association. Their decision to partially reverse their disastrous digital ticketing policy for the Scottish Cup semi-final is not about fixing the problem—it’s about damage control.

It’s a classic example of an organisation doing just enough to stave off a full-scale revolt while stubbornly refusing to admit that their entire approach is wrong.

The SFA’s original plan was as ill-conceived as it was infuriating. The idea was to make tickets for the semi-final digital-only, requiring fans to use smartphones to gain entry. That was bad enough, given that not everyone owns a smartphone or trusts the security of digital ticketing systems. It risked leaving a whole segment of our support – and lets be honest, the other club’s fans as well – completely outside in the cold, which is a truly abysmal way for even this governing body to do business.

But the real kicker was their decision to make these tickets non-transferable.

In practice, this meant that if a fan couldn’t attend the game for any reason—illness, a last-minute emergency, even a travel disruption—they couldn’t pass their ticket on to someone else. If their phone died on the way to Hampden? Tough luck. If an elderly supporter who usually gets a paper ticket from a family member couldn’t navigate the digital system? Too bad.

The backlash was immediate and furious. Many of the blogs wrote about it.

We talked about it on the podcast last night. There was a Celtic Supporters Association meeting at the weekend where it was widely discussed.

Fans made it crystal clear that this was not just an inconvenience but a fundamental barrier to attending the game. Faced with this growing revolt, the SFA has now announced a partial U-turn. The non-transferable policy has been scrapped, meaning fans can now pass on their digital tickets if necessary.

But the core problem remains.

They’ve tackled half the problem, in a way that is more to do with public relations than anything else. The issue here was not so much the non-transferable policy as this digital only rubbish which is going to lock a lot of fans from all four clubs out of participating in the way they normally would.

This is the national cup competition.

Only the SFA could come up with a policy this shitty, this intrinsically flawed, this discriminatory, and think it’s alright. In which room full of Bright Young Things did they pitch this abomination?

The digital-only requirement is still in place, despite the fact that paper tickets have been a mainstay of football for over a century. This is not a genuine change of heart—it’s a cynical attempt to defuse just enough anger to prevent all-out chaos, while keeping this fundamentally stinking idea in place instead of casting it into the bin where it most definitely does belong.

The key difference between the U-turns I talked about earlier and what the SFA has just done is intent. Roosevelt, Wilson, and Major all recognised reality and changed course decisively. Their reversals weren’t about avoiding short-term embarrassment; they were about making the right call for the long term.

The SFA, on the other hand, has done the bare minimum to quiet the noise while keeping the digital-only system intact. If they had genuinely listened to supporters, they would have scrapped the entire digital mandate and allowed paper tickets as an option.

That’s the crucial phrase here. As an option.

Are there people who are just fine with the idea of a digital ticket? Of course there are, and for many people that will forever be their preferred option. But there are thousands, perhaps tens of thousands, of fans who do not want to have to carry their phone to a game, or who don’t have one in the first place. There is a generation of our fans who aren’t comfortable with technology.

What the Hell do they do? How can the SFA just write them off?

Making it optional would have been a proper course correction. Instead, they’re hoping that by making this minor adjustment, and allowing fans to transfer their tickets to other smartphones they can pretend the problem has been solved. They can pretend they’ve listened. They can pretend that they give a shit.

This is how bad leadership handles a crisis—by refusing to admit a real mistake while making token gestures to avoid further scrutiny. A proper U-turn is about learning from failure and making the necessary changes. A cynical one, like this, is about covering your arse and hoping people move on. No chance.

We’ll be revisiting this issue come the final.

If Celtic thinks that a digital season ticket, with no option to use the current system, is something that a lot of our fans are going to accept, they are dead wrong about that. Our club has to have been involved in this, and a clear message needs to be sent to them that this isn’t on.

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