Football politics, sugar on the medicine

Football club politics is hard.  You can adopt a popular position – for example, restricting Celtic fans to 700 tickets at Ibrox, but try accounting for bad actors throwing bottles, or the public safety hazard of disrupting egress routes build up over a century.

You successfully stop 7,000 Celtic fans from having a party, no more Leigh Griffiths tying scarves to your posts, but having conceded to fans’ demands, how do you unwind your position when circumstances move on?

The source cause behind Celtic ultimately deciding there would be no visiting fans when Newco visit on 8 April happened some years ago, when Newco designated part of the Broomloan Rd side of the ground, used for a century by away fans, for their ultras group.  The ultras had to be moved to accommodate Celtic fans, which was always going to rub them up the wrong way.

Celtic were correct, the recent scenario where 700 fans were kettled into a stadium at huge public cost (policing outside of grounds is not paid for by the clubs), then had all sorts thrown at them for two hours, was untenable.  Go back to 7,000 fans, with all that means for moving ultras and Celtic parties, or have home fans only.

It would take an enormously strong Newco board to revert to 7,000 visiting fans, something they have never had and are very unlikely to have any time (generation) soon.  Gone are the days when a David Murray-type would tell them what they needed to know at Ibrox, and they would lap it up/pay their bond to confirm a right to buy a season ticket, without complaint.

The only scenario that I see changing things is when Newco season ticket sales drop so far they can free-up space in another stand and locate their ultras there, perhaps with the promise of safe standing, as a sprinkling of sugar on the medicine.  So maybe not that long.