Celtic Park: The Heart of the Glasgow Derby

Three weeks today Celtic Park will host the Glasgow Derby, so far there has been no word over whether any tickets will be made available to away supporters.

The last time away fans were at the fixture they were treated to a 4-0 defeat in September 2022, gaining a perfect view of Jota’s iconic goal and celebration. On the morning of the match Barry Ferguson revealed that Gio had Ange sussed to Daily Record readers, alas it was the last time that the Dutchman got to send a team out at Celtic Park, Micky Beale made his only trip to the east end in April 2023 and left with nothing.

The ticket stand off dates back to the summer of 2018, Dave King reacting to angry bears, deciding to give Celtic the same Ibrox allocation as Ross County and Kilmarnock, since then away allocations have bounced between 0 and 700 with the old days of 7,000 away fans at the fixture now a distant memory.

Last season the SPFL announced a breakthrough with both clubs agreeing to allocate around 5% of their capacity, in line with UEFA allocations it was dubbed the European arrangement.

Both clubs agreed to security work to improve safety, special access was required with netting to be installed to prevent Celtic fans from being used as target practise inside Ibrox.

With no sign of that work being carried out at Ibrox during the summer Celtic pulled out of the arrangement for the September 3 match, in reply it was bears only at Ibrox on January 2.

The new arrangement should be in place on March 16 but so far there has been no word from either club about ticket arrangements, it is a major police operation to deal with 2,500/3,000 or 0 away fans on a Sunday lunchtime.

If there are no away fans Celtic will sell out on the additional tickets almost instantly.

Back in August the SPFL announced:

Following recent media coverage around the issue of away tickets for matches between Celtic and Rangers, the SPFL has spoken with both clubs and can confirm it has been agreed between all three parties that:
the September 2024 and January 2025 William Hill Premiership matches between Rangers and Celtic will take place with a zero allocation for away supporters
thereafter, Rangers and Celtic will provide ticket allocations of around 5% of respective stadium capacity for away supporters, for SPFL matches between the two clubs. This remains subject to all necessary requirements being satisfied at both Ibrox and Celtic Park.
An SPFL spokesperson said: “The presence of away fans is a vital ingredient of the passion, drama and excitement that is the hallmark of the William Hill Premiership. We are pleased that Rangers and Celtic are committed to achieving the return of away supporters to their derby matches as soon as possible.”

With the next match three weeks away it seems that the safety issues are still to be resolved. Michael Nicholson will have to be assured over the conditions for Celtic fans visiting Ibrox in a post-split fixture before he signs off on an away allocation for March 16.

Celtic have a significant number of Season Ticket holders that are guaranteed access to 17 SPFL matches, the other two fixtures are decided match by match but have covered two Glasgow Derbies since 2018 at a cost of around £50 per game.

If the decision has been taken to allocate 2,500/3,000 tickets to away supporters it will require a significant no-mans land and much higher security costs, there hasn’t been more than 700 bears inside Celtic Park since the 5-0 title decider in May 2018.

YB Bern and Bayern Munich fans have been at Celtic Park over the last five weeks without any issues but the Glasgow Derby is a very different matter.

It has virtually become the norm at both grounds to have 700 or 0 away supporters, Celtic fans don’t expect to attend matches at Ibrox although there is a hard core happy to take on the risks which start with being inside the ground two hours before kick-off.

Neither club will want to break the news that the European agreement won’t be in place this season, that task is likely to be left to the SPFL with last season’s ‘breakthrough’ announcement mounting to nothing but wishful thinking.

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