Just 300 Celtic fans at Ibrox? Are you having a laugh? Because I certainly am not. This is ridiculous, it is scandalous and, quite frankly, I think Celtic should tell the Ibrox club exactly where they can put that allocation.
I have read the statement from the Affiliation of Celtic Supporters Clubs, and I’ve listened to the likes of Frank McAvennie and Martin O’Neill himself on this and I completely understand their anger. In fact, I share it.
This is one of the biggest fixtures in Scottish football, one of the most intense atmospheres in the game and a match watched around the world, yet Celtic supporters are apparently supposed to accept what amounts to a token presence inside Ibrox.
No. Absolutely not.
When I look at this, I see an attempt by the Ibrox club to control the presence of Celtic supporters at one of Scottish football’s biggest fixtures, and I don’t accept that.
Let’s stop pretending this is some ordinary cup tie between two clubs who happen to be playing each other. It isn’t. This is Celtic and the Ibrox club, and what makes these games special is not simply the 22 players on the pitch.
It is the noise, the colour, the tension, the songs and the travelling support. It is thousands of supporters making the journey across Glasgow and creating an atmosphere that tells the players exactly what this fixture means.
Martin O’Neill has already questioned the point of accepting such a tiny allocation, and I agree with him. A few hundred supporters tucked away in a corner does not recreate the proper atmosphere of this fixture and it does not provide a meaningful away section.
That is why the Affiliation of Celtic Supporters Clubs is right to be angry. This is not simply about who gets lucky in a ticket ballot. It is about whether the Celtic support is going to be meaningfully represented at all.
Football supporters are not numbers on a spreadsheet. These are people who organise buses, travel together, have attended these matches for decades, plan their weekends around Celtic and spend significant amounts of money following the team.
A tiny allocation creates real logistical problems too. Supporters’ clubs function because groups travel together, organise buses together and make following Celtic manageable and affordable. Reduce the travelling support to a few hundred and much of that organisation becomes pointless.
When you then add the tighter ingress arrangements being demanded at Ibrox, the situation becomes even more absurd. Celtic supporters are expected to bend around whatever restrictions the home club chooses while receiving almost nothing meaningful in return.
That is the part I object to most. The safety thing.
The Ibrox club can make proposals. It can discuss arrangements with Celtic, the police and the relevant authorities. It can argue for whatever security measures it believes are necessary. What it should not be able to do is simply decide unilaterally what constitutes an acceptable Celtic presence and expect our club to accept it.
For league meetings, Celtic and the Ibrox club already have a framework based around reciprocal away allocations of roughly five per cent, subject to the required conditions being met. The SPFL itself has spoken about the importance of away supporters to the passion and spectacle of the fixture.
Some say the Premier Sports Cup does not operate under that same agreement. But why not? It’s the same bloody organiser! There is still a difference between what is technically permitted and what is fair, sensible and proportionate.
Nobody is arguing that Celtic is automatically entitled to the entire Broomloan Stand for every cup fixture. The argument is that reducing one of Scottish football’s biggest travelling supports to a token presence is an absurd response to a problem which should be dealt with through proper policing, stewarding and segregation.
Personally, I think Celtic should reject the allocation. For a start it’s unsafe. The club rejected an Ibrox allocation previously on similar grounds and if their club is not prepared to offer something which constitutes a meaningful away support, then Celtic should not help legitimise the arrangement by accepting a token number simply so that somebody can claim away fans were technically present.
This is bigger than the few hundred supporters who might get tickets. It is about whether this becomes normal. That is what worries me.
If Celtic accepts this without a fight, what happens next time? What happens when another restriction is introduced? What happens when 300 becomes the accepted benchmark because everybody shrugged and allowed it to happen once?
Football authorities are very good at allowing temporary measures to become permanent realities. Celtic should not help them.
If the Ibrox club wants the atmosphere, drama and intensity that comes with this magnificent, maddening, completely bonkers fixture, then both sets of supporters should be represented properly. That is part of what makes the game what it is.
If safety genuinely cannot be guaranteed with a meaningful travelling support, then the authorities should explain why and what must change before it can be restored. What they should not do is treat Celtic supporters as though their presence is an optional inconvenience.
I am with the Affiliation of Celtic Supporters Clubs on this one. I am with Martin O’Neill, and I am with every Celtic supporter who looks at this situation and thinks the same thing: why should our support simply accept whatever terms the Ibrox club chooses to impose?
It is ridiculous, it is insulting and it should not be normalised.
Because 300 Celtic fans at Ibrox isn’t an away allocation. It’s a bloody token gesture, designed in fact to insult us, and I, for one, don’t think Celtic should accept it.
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Only one response, forfeit the game. Let them lose the gate receipts and if they are that desperate they can have it. But the next week, ban not only their racist following but ban also their board of directors who permit and encourage their racism