The Celtic Board can have absolutely no complaints about the financial commitment that Celtic Supporters have made towards the club over the past two summers. Last year 60,000 season tickets were sold at full price – name another set of supporters anywhere in world football who managed that? – despite the prospect of seeing any games live being unlikely to say the least.
Then after enduring a season from hell, which was incidentally made far worse by the actions or perhaps inactions in the Celtic Boardroom, the same group of supporters pitched up again to provide the club with another remarkable season ticket sales figures by the time Don McKay introduced new manager Ange Postecoglou to the support at the end of June.
The New Celtic CEO was understandably delighted, stating that on the day the Australian was officially unveiled at Celtic Park the club achieved a record breaking day for season book renewals. And by that time everyone was aware that fans return for the new season was going to happen, after the numbers at the European Championships increased as that tournament progressed through June.
Dom McKay promised World class standards at the club and one of the first areas where his new style of management could be implemented was in the opening up of the stadium to supporters on a slow but sure basis. 2000 fans where there to see the friendly against Preston North End, then 9000 attended the first competitive match of the season, the Champions League qualifier against FC Midtjylland – these matches having been drawn from different ballots, for reasons only known to McKay and his Ticket Office staff.
Next up came the second friendly against West Ham and 18,500 were drawn from the Friendly ticket ballot, meaning that 20,500 were successful in that ballot and presumably 30,000 missed out.
Next up is the Scottish Premiership opener against Dundee on Sunday, the day before all restrictions on numbers are effectively removed. 24,500 supporters were lucky in the competitive ballot, many of course having enjoyed a remarkably similar success rate in the ‘friendly ballot’.
Had McKay simply operated one ballot and everyone got one game each – leaving it to the luck of the draw to see which one you ended up with – then he’d have far fewer problems this evening. When the Dundee game was still scheduled for this Saturday, ie before our Champions League exit in Denmark, I was having a conversation with someone at the club about the ballot shambles that was emerging as so many fans were left with a dreadful 0/4 record. Here’s the reply:
“On the ballots, you’d need to be priority now for the next match as after Saturday (now Sunday) we will have had 29.5k in and have 25k for the next match so you would be a cert for that I’d say.”
That next match is on Thursday night against Jablonec in the second leg of the Europa League qualifier which should be fairly comfortable after Celtic’s 4-2 win in the Czech Republic earlier today. Today Dom McKay decided to charge all supporters – even those with a 0/4 record a minimum of £19 for a game that Celtic are morally obliged to honour their pledge to supporters, who through the hardest period in living memory for many families have shelled out significant sums of money to back Celtic.
For the 0/4 supporters the bad taste will last a very long time indeed. I haven’t been to a Celtic game at Paradise since the St Mirren match in early March 2020. I’ll only be going next Thursday if Celtic honour their commitment to treat all season tickets fairly and reasonably.
And it’s worth noting that many of the 0/4 also did not ask for a rebate on the matches missed at the end of the previous season. That option remains open to supporters to request that refund now. When the game is on next Thursday, I’ll not be there and instead will be completing the refund form to post the Celtic Ticket Office the next morning.