The vast open spaces of unoccupied seats at Hampden on Saturday were a frustration to Celtic fans unable to buy a ticket for the game. So too for the Scottish Professional Football League, who left money on the table in the hope that St Johnstone were able to attract enough fans to fill their allocation.
It was reminiscent of our last League Cup semi-final, against Hibs, two years ago. Hibs were allocated the same slice of Hampden as St Johnstone but left £30 uncollected for every 24” of unoccupied stadium, a painful one for the SPFL and earlier locked out Celtic fans.
For next month’s final, Hibs have been allocated 17, 500 tickets, a significantly higher number than their season ticket count or average gate. Enough, you would think, to satisfy the fans who keep the game afloat in a country where gate money occupies a higher proportion of clubs’ income than anywhere else in Europe.
Hibs want 25,000 tickets, not just because they hope to sell than number, but also for “sporting integrity”, as having more fans attend bestows an advantage. This latter point is true but also a curious hill to fight on.
It is not the allocation that maintains an equitable sporting advantage but the number who attend. If Hibs want to argue this point, they surely must limit Celtic’s ability to sell into their 25,000 ticket stock in equal proportion to the uptake from Hibs fans. 25,000 Celtic fans and 15,000 Hibs fans still gives Celtic an advantage.
Football clubs often play to the gallery, something I have urged Celtic to do more of in the past. This ticket protest from Hibs has a touch of this flavour to it. Angry from Easter Road writes to complain because it is costless to do so, the suits at the SPFL are targeted as pantomime villains.
It is a disingenuous attack, but are they really going to say, “Thank you to the Celtic fans who will again pay crucial money into the Scottish game”? Thanks too to League Cup sponsors cinch (sic.), and best of luck getting in enforcing the branding rights you have paid for.
Loved the Celtic Christmas ad, which is an established treat. It speaks of a club with confidence in itself.
212 Comments- Pages:
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ernie lynch on 23rd November 2021 5:19 pm
British Nationalism? I’m surprised you are even commenting on it, after all it gets an airing every day from the trolls.
Bada
Dont think its because its a cop but that he was the enforcer of a policy that has caused many young people a lot of grief, a bad law, draconian and discriminatory but enjoyably implemented by him .
ERNIE LYNCH
The only thing I learned from it is that the Urban Voltaire is still alive.
Is he really? I used to look forward to his musings every week in the Glasgow Herald.
BIG JIMMY on 23RD NOVEMBER 2021 5:21 PM
36% of SNP voters voted for Brexit.
Which shouldn’t be a surprise to anyone, given that it used to be SNP policy to leave the EU.
And to be fair to them, that is a logically coherent position for anyone who believes in ‘independence’.
https://twitter.com/i/status/1462434069950701570
ERNIE LYNCH @ 5:19 PM,
Yes. Incessant, uneducated, unreliable UK Nationalist nonsense.
At a Scottish School in the seventies I learned of a regional King of what is now England who burnt the cakes but not of Kenneth Mcalpin.
That’s the way mindsets are fashioned and deliberately so.
Personally I think Alfred was indeed a Great man.
Also I feel comfortable with the Gael, Celtic thing but don’t generally see myself identified as any race or “ism”.
Yet try to tell the English they can’t use the St George flag or the Union Flag or any of their Nations paraphernalia.
Too many wrongs were inflicted on the Gaelic people up to and including ethnic clensing to allow people to come onto a Celtic site and getting away with promoting more lies.
Hail Hail
!!BADA BING!! on 23RD NOVEMBER 2021 5:17 PM
What’s the obsession at CP,with appointing ex cops? Lawwell had 3 in his inner circle, all huns btw,why not get someone with a media/marketing background, and they might be able to contribute something relevant.
°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°
The recruitment is another example of a smug, arrogant, entitled, executive, who are well aware that they don’t have supporters who’ll hold them to account.
If Celtic supporters have become plastic, just like the seats they sit on, then the PLC will ensure that the oldfirm is the winner, and it has need since 2012, when Rangers died, all the way to 2016 when Celtic supporters bought £49 [same club defined] priced tickets.
Was that lazy, dumb, CGAF, what?
Would Hibbees fans have been so lazy, dumb, CGAF, about the 2016 ticket trap?
Unaccountable PLC recruits Higgins Shocker!
Anyone who thinks the potential Higgins appointment is anything other than an outrage should simply remember the kettling of the Green Brigade and the dawn raids on teenagers .
He isn’t suitable for a job anywhere near Celtic.
A true see you next Tuesday.
” I have never seen a situation so dismal that a policeman couldn’t make it worse.”
Brendan Behan
Anyone who thinks along these lines is for the watching.
It’s full on proto fascism.
#####
“Anglo-Saxons” like you have been giving it to us Gaels for a thousand years – couldn’t beat us in a fair fight so contrived all sorts of despicable strategies to extinguish us and our way of life.
Remember, we are the indigenous people of the British Isles and your ethnic cleansing is being reversed.
The Celtic nations will not have their identities flushed away.
Go to London, see what is left of Anglo Saxon culture in your Capital.
MMCCARTNEY on 23RD NOVEMBER 2021 4:49 PM
Is that your best shot. ?
Avoiding the topic we’re debating and resorting into a rant about independence ( Which was never mentioned)
Without fear or favour, I will continue to criticise all parties that I see as being anti celtic or not acting in the best issues of Celtic.
Will you ?
ERNIE LYNCH @ 5:53 PM,
Totally disagree.
My children have English, Welsh, Scottish and Irish blood – I love that about them. They are proud of it all but are totally free thinkers.
I’m so proud of them.
Anyone who come on here waving a Union Flag and deprecate the Saltire and Tartan is for the watching.
It’s a fact of history that they banned tartan.
As a wiser man than I once said…
Imagine there’s no countries
It isn’t hard to do
Nothing to kill or die for
And no religion too
Imagine all the people
Living life in peace
Hail Hail
If the Christmas video is a tribute to Bertie Auld then all well and good but I only saw a brief reference to him in it. I think Eddie Reader is a great singer but the definitive, modern, female, scottish version of Auld Lang Syne is on Gill Bowman’s 1994 record “A Toast to the Lasses” released in 1994. Eddie has made quite a career out of playing and recording Burns songs recently and good on her but I had never heard of her Celtic Connections until now.
the song/advert are a tribute to Bertie.
Eddis celtic credentials are well know.
https://www.celticfc.com/news/2021/november/23/emotional-moment-for-eddi-reader-singing-on-christmas-advert/
CHAIRBHOY on 23RD NOVEMBER 2021 6:03 PM
Even the cult disavow blood and soil ethnic nationalism these days, at least in public.
It’s not a good look. It really isn’t.
dessybhoy- totally understand the Higgins nonsense, but why another cop?
CHAIRBHOY @ 6:03 PM,
What Cult would that be.
Are you making stuff anaw…
You’ve known me from this blog a long time now.
I care little for how things look.
My own man and a free thinker, there’s a dangerous combination eh!
Oppression and mis-education certainly concerns me.
Politics, not so much – you guys are a busted flush.
Hail Hail
Well known to some but I have been following Eddie Reader since her Fairground Attraction days and never heard her mention Celtic. Move over Rod Stewart, Jim Kerr, Bobby Gillespie, Lewis Capaldi and Martin Compston.
“Great read again Ralph but unfortunately I believe the head of the sports science team is heading to Germany for a new appointment.”
Read this on Etims this morning. Anybody know if there is any truth to this?
Jack Ross, why dont you comment on your players having bottles and cans thrown at them celebrating a goal by Sevco supporters instead of being baffled by a ticket allocation that you probably wont even sell.
RIMTIMTIM
Well known to some but I have been following Eddie Reader since her Fairground Attraction days and never heard her mention Celtic
Back in Fergus’s day Eddie Reader sang a version of It’s got to be Perfect with the words It’s got to be Celtic.
DESSYBHOY
Ross is just doing what any manager should in his situation, fighting his corner. Would like to think there is an ongoing Police investigation into the objects thrown at his players.
With reference to the nonsense posted from JHB that the Green Brigade were not in sync with the majority of the support vis-a-vis the indefensible appointment of Higgins, Phil shows here that 112 CSCs agree with the GB. If the North American CSCs had been asked fir support, there would have been many more.
https://philmacgiollabhain.ie/2021/11/23/a-contemptuous-appointment/
GREEN PINATA 6 02pm 23/11/21 ERNIE LYNCH 23/11/21
Being an Independence supporters does not make me a slavish follower of the SNP. This thread started out as a discussion by Paul on the ticketing arrangements for the League Cup final and I agree with him on this.
It then was sidetracked by JHB onto an anti independence and anti Gael rant along with a comment about Higgins, I then gave my main reason for supporting Independence. As a football supporter I was dead against the OB Act, but politics isn’t about one issue.
C’mon the Celtic
Wee Eddi Reader
https://www.celticfc.com/news/2021/november/23/emotional-moment-for-eddi-reader-singing-on-christmas-advert/
Thank you Tom.
You could apply to me the famous Billy Connolly punchline…”And his mouth was shut”
Would love to hear it!!
Hot Smoked @ 3:50pm.
Cheers.
Am genuinely happy for the non-factual nonsense I publicly proposed re Hibs support to be called out, ridiculed and shown up for what it is.
On the same subject though, who’ll do similar to Hibs?
Dessybhoy, why don’t you cut Ross a bit of slack. After all that happened at Ibrox between the MIB, Porteous, Gerrard and then the media calling Hibs chokers going into this game. As a Tim Hibs are always my second team in Scotland, always got on with their fans.
Sionnaigh
Dont hold your breath waiting , you could asphyxiate, unless there are photos/video on Social media PS will do nothing, I see the bus incident is now being looked at, there is grainy footage available of that which was on STV news tonight.
I will give credit when its due this doesnt warrant it.
RIMTIMTIM
Many years ago Eddi announced her support of Celtic during a live Hogmanay TV show.
I think Higgins is a done deal. The Celtic Boards in the past have not listened to the support and neither will this current Board. If they have already offered him the job and he has accepted then there is no going back. I think we will then see a different strategy of dealing with the Green Brigade,
Another Fine by UEFA this week.
ERNIE LYNCH @ 5:53 PM,
Out of curiosity, would you say someone who is defending the rights of the Palestinians’, and supports their rights for self determination is for the watching and is promoting proto fascism?
JHB,
So I take it that was no ones “message” and just stuff you made up – again.
Not so good at this spin Doctor malarkey are you?
Hail Hail
the fine from uefa was a lot of shite – i couldnt work out the green brigade conundrum, so how could they .
https://i0.wp.com/celtsarehere.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/10/green_brigade.jpg?resize=696%2C392&ssl=1
On the buses,recognise emdi
https://twitter.com/TheShamrock1888/status/1362979770221363202?t=sHv6pN3Kzt-keF4uOzLA4Q&s=19
https://the-shamrock.net/2021/02/20/on-the-buses/
Blakey Csc
HH
CHAIRBHOY on 23RD NOVEMBER 2021 7:08 PM
ERNIE LYNCH @ 5:53 PM,
Out of curiosity, would you say someone who is defending the rights of the Palestinians’, and supports their rights for self determination is for the watching and is promoting proto fascism?
####
If it was expressed in racist (which in that context would be anti Semitic) terms, yes definitely.
Equating the Scots with the Palestinians is of course ridiculous and disrespectful, given the suffering of the Palestinian people.
As for the ‘rights for self determination’, how would you assess such determination? A referendum perhaps? Or would you disregard the result of such a referendum if it didn’t go your way?
Top of the league in Jan is a go!
Villareal fans finally get to see playing out from the back cost a goal. Cue (queue) the “I told you so” Nostradamus brigade.
i thought the gavin strachan on his tablet reference on the christmas video was quite funny.
https://twitter.com/i/status/1463125480811466760