So many Celtic supporters on the club’s HCTS missed out on Scottish Cup Final tickets and with Aberdeen winning the final it’s maybe being regarded by some as not a bad cup final to miss anyway…
However when all the controversies were happening in the run-up to the final, with Aberdeen getting 20,000 ticket allocation from the Scottish FA, Celtic being rather reluctant to engage with supporters on the ballot – you either got an email or you didn’t – and the latter hardly screams of great customer service.
Rumours to tickets being returned by Aberdeen and also extra tickets being issued by Aberdeen were all floated around, another rumour had an additional 1000 tickets going out to both club ahead of Saturday’s final.
Now that the dust has settled on the 2025 Scottish Cup Final, The Celtic Star can let you know what we found out from Celtic about how many tickets Celtic received and what actually happened to them. There has been stories of greater allocations being given to corporate package holders to the detriment to those on the HCTS and if that was the case then it would be shoddy to say the least from Celtic.
So we wanted to find out and got our questions answered by the club. We decided to wait until afterward the final to explain exactly what happened.
Celtic received 20,000 tickets for the 2025 Scottish Cup Final from the Scottish FA.
75% of these were allocated to standard season ticket holders on the Home Cup Ticket Scheme – so that’s 15,000 tickets, probably giving you around a 1/3 chance in the ballot this time around.
Hampden debenture holders get their opportunity to buy all those Upper Tier seats, this was an SFA scheme when Hampden was being refurbished, so the ongoing right is there and it’s mostly Celtic and theRangers supporters who hold these debentures. If one team isn’t playing then there are informal deals in place to swap so that tends to take care of those tickets, and that’s why there were so many Celtic supporters at the top tier of the South stand on Saturday.
The Scottish FA keep loads for what they call the ‘football family’ and these will mostly be for the South stand at Hampden. Some will have ended up in the hands of Celtic supporters and there will have been neutrals at the game too.
The 5000 balance of Celtic’s 20,000 tickets are divided amongst Club Ambassadors, Sponsors, Club Celtic, Exec Club, Box Holders, Walfrid, Cafe 1888, Directors, Celtic Pools and Celtic staff.
Staff tickets account for around 25% of the allocation ie approximately 1250 tickets.
On the Corporate packages, there are 1000 tickets allocated for every Cup Final, that number has been the same for the last 10 years at least, probably longer. Packages are sold as alternatives and not as additional, therefore if you have a right to buy tickets and you buy packages that removes your right to buy standard tickets. So there has been NO increase in this area in recent seasons.
That’s the broad details on how the 20,000 tickets were distributed by Celtic for Saturday’s Scottish Cup Final at Hampden Park.
It all seems fair enough, a few ‘rumours’ are dismissed and discounted but it remains the case that Celtic could and should communicate better with supporters, especially those who have not been successful in the ballot, which in itself could be better explained and perhaps reviewed, learning the lessons of this year.
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I’ve not had a ticket for the last four cup finals and I’ve been in the home ticket scheme since its inception!!!!! Four finals at 15,000 per game = 60,000 as we only have about 30,000 on the scheme something doesn’t add up if the draw is being done fairly.