GLASGOW, SCOTLAND - MARCH 08: A Rangers fan in a "No Surrender" hoodie storms the pitch with a pole at full time during a Scottish Gas Scottish Cup Quarter-Final match between Rangers and Celtic at Ibrox Stadium, on March 08, 2026, in Glasgow, Scotland. (Photo by Alan Harvey/SNS Group via Getty Images)
Today, the SPFL has ruled in Celtic’s favour in the ticket dispute with the Ibrox club.
And you know what? As this blog has said from the start, there really was no other sensible option for the governing body to take.
Celtic’s position has been excellent throughout. It has been crystal clear. The Union Brats were the cause of the disorder at Ibrox.
Celtic fans may have been on the pitch, and you can argue the rights and wrongs of that all you like. But that does not justify a group of supporters charging onto the pitch, masked and armed, looking to provoke violence.
Since the football authorities at the SFA did nothing meaningful about this, since Police Scotland have not done very much about it, and since the issue was very much in Celtic’s hands ahead of the looming fixture, our club had to act.
These were exceptional circumstances.
Under normal circumstances, Celtic would never have made such a demand of the visiting club. Had their supporters behaved themselves, had they shown even the slightest restraint at Ibrox, this would not have happened.
We would not be in this position.
Celtic would not have had to make this call.
Of course, if others had intervened properly, if the media had told the truth, if the focus had been placed on the real problem from the start, we might not be here either.
But here we are.
And Celtic made the right decision.
With precedent on our side, safety as the main concern and the context of what next weekend’s game might mean, the SPFL has now made its call. For once, a governing body in Scottish football has reached the right decision.
It is Celtic’s right to say who gets into our house and who does not, based on the circumstances of the moment.
And the circumstances of this moment are fraught with obvious danger.
There was no other responsible decision the SPFL could have reached.
Celtic will no doubt speak about this in due course. I am writing this just after the breaking news, and the Ibrox club will certainly respond as well.
But the position now appears clear. The SPFL has told them they will not get tickets unless they agree to Celtic’s specific condition.
Now it is up to them what they do about it.
They can stamp their feet. They can wail, whinge, moan, threaten and posture all they want. But in the end, they have two choices.
They can accept the conditions Celtic have placed on them.
Or they can disenfranchise their entire travelling support to protect the rights of a group of thugs.
Do not let anyone kid you that this is not the issue at play here.
The only people now standing between the Ibrox club and its ticket allocation are the Ibrox club itself. They can explain to their own supporters why they would rather turn down tickets than accept a basic condition aimed at keeping violent troublemakers out of Celtic Park.
They can try to find a way around this. They can offer the tickets in a manner that does not explicitly give them to the Union Brats section. They can dress it up however they like.
But the fact remains that the SPFL has ruled in Celtic’s favour.
The SPFL has decided that Celtic are the home club, and that the safety and risk assessment carried out by the home club will not be overturned in this case.
That is a win.
The Ibrox club is free to treat this however it wants. My understanding is that it will accept the condition, however much it sticks in their craw to do so.
This is obviously a breaking story. There will be statements from both clubs, and we will cover those as we get them.
But for now, the decision has been made.
There is already much wailing and gnashing of teeth on the Ibrox fan forums, and some of them are trying to dress this up as some kind of left-handed win.
It is not.
We know it is not.
There was never any question of Celtic refusing them tickets outright. From the beginning, Celtic’s stance has been that the tickets are available if the conditions are met.
For all their posturing, strutting, sneering and vows to back their fans, the Ibrox club is now going to have to swallow this.
There is no appeal.
There is no secondary route.
The decision has been made.
Fair play to the SPFL board for coming to the correct conclusion. In the circumstances, what other choice did it really have?
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Do we trust that club to allocate their tickets properly? Do we trust fans who obtain a ticket not selling it to UB members? I have concerns that they’ll still somehow get in our stadium. So what happens if there are 50+ members of the UB standing in the away section at KO time?
They’ll get in and probably unfurl some misspelt daft message of defiance but I doubt there’ll be any trouble.
The BBC’s weasel headline:
“SPFL say Rangers should get 5% of derby tickets.”
Unbelievable that they tried to spin it that way.
DixoeD67, if the nasties take up their allocation there is no way they will try to prevent the hun scum from getting access. And you can be sure that if “normal” fans buy them they won’t hesitate on giving them to the thugs
If the nasties do take up their allocation then we will probably need Spanish or Dutch riot police brought over to control the blue hoardes.
I bet you will see the pathetic pussies running along argyle street crying liek they did the time before
Again, owners change, mindsets don’t. I suspect that the hun scarfers will give their tickets up to the blue Spidermen in an attempt to get one over on us. The gimp masked, tracksuit wearing, feral fuckwits will be there.
It’s a moral victory for Celtic and we should continue with that same stance in all future games against that thuggish and violent mob. Some of the brats will still get access to the ground, that’s a definite, but their presence will be severely watered down and no, I don’t think there will be ,many of their travelling fans volunteering their tickets to them.
If the huns take the tickets, which they will, then the onion brats will be there. There will be supporters clubs and others giving them tickets. If it happens I hope the cops kettle them like they did the green brigade and take tickets to check where they came from. It doesn’t matter whether it’s the brats or the regular bigots, they are all the same only the masks are different The good thing is we can use this to ban the lot of them as they will wreck Celtic Park and it might not be fixed for the Hearts game so there Edinburgh brethren won’t be in Celtic Park for what could be a title decider.
At turnstile, ticket gets handed over, operator asks to see ticket holders bank card, if name don’t match then “Bye Bye”
The cops reputation cannot afford another day like the one at Liebrox…
Could be a long long day for The Sevco Hun Hoards…
IF IF IF Celtic fuckin turn up of course !
Don’t kid yourselves.
All of the smurf brats ,all 200 will get in and when they do they will make sure that everyone knows they are in.
They will see this as a victory when they do get in.
Let’s hope we can make them wish they didn’t get in by skelping their team on the park.
If the cowardly imbeciles get in and cause havoc/damage then a permanent ban should follow on all Sevco fans from our stadium. It really is that simple. But i’m not quite ready to praise our board for doing the right thing for once. Let’s see how this pans out. Someone needs to take a firm stance against their sectarian and childishly thuggish tantrums. And that someone needs to be us. Time to come down hard on this shit. And who gives a f@ck if they respond in kind by banning Celtic supporters? Let them. Just keep the filth out of Paradise. It’s the 21st Century.