STV are reporting that there is no change from Celtic on their views of away tickets at the Glasgow Derby.
The has been no away fans inside Ibrox for the last two derby matches with the SFA and SPFL opening talks to restore some sort of away allocations for the two matches scheduled for this season.
Since Celtic’s ticket allocation to Ibrox was cut from 7,000 to 750 at the start of the 2018/19 season the issue has been ongoing with no away fans at the Derby fixture since January 2 of last year.
In some ways it seems easier to police and control 7,000 away fans compared to 750 with the lower figure creating obvious security issues.
On Tuesday morning The Times broke the news of talks being held between the clubs but in early evening STV reported:
Discussions are now taking place in the hope of having away fans at the next time the teams meet, which will be at Ibrox on April 6, and the following game that will take place in Parkhead after the split.
However, STV understands that Celtic will still refuse 700 tickets if offered for Ibrox over safety concerns.
They would prefer for a return to the pre-2018 allocations of around 8,000 for each stadium.
The wording from STV suggests that they have spoken to Celtic off the record and been informed that nothing has changed from Celtic’s decision not to take tickets for the September match.
At the moment SPFL rules state that a reasonable amount of tickets have to be offered to the away team but with that wording it is difficult to enforce anything.
The article in The Times suggests that the SPFL could introduce a rule requiring visiting fans get 2/5% of tickets at stadiums with capacity of over 30,000 which applies to just two clubs.
In contrast to that in Scottish Cup ties the away club is entitled to a 20% allocation of tickets, at Ibrox that could be difficult with Celtic entitled to claim 3,000 more than the capacity of the Broomloan Road Stand.
The design of Celtic Park would make that sort of allocation easier to accommodate but until the clubs are drawn together before the semi-final stage the Scottish Cup question won’t be answered.
Despite news of talks being held it seems that views are too entrenched for change this season with the opening match of the 24/25 season being staged at Celtic Park.
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