Here’s how Celtic can eliminate empty seats at Paradise, if Man City can do it…

Earlier this week on The Celtic Star we reported on the empty seats at the St Mirren v Celtic Scottish Premiership match on Sunday and the lost revenue to the Paisley side, together with the bad look that this presents for the Scottish game as it’s broadcast live by Sky Sports.

Empty seats in preference to paying customers sitting on them seems to be a warped logic that has taken root in the Scottish Premiership, with clubs like St Mirren, Kilmarnock, Hearts, Hibs, Dundee United and others all turning their noses up at the away supporters’ cash when Celtic or theRangers are the visitors.

This sparked a lively debate on The Celtic Star’s Facebook page with supporters at many of these clubs attempting to justify the position. The comments are well worth reading.

When you add to that the absolute mess that surrounds getting away supporters to attend Glasgow Derby matches since theRangers drastically reduced the Celtic allocation after yet another home defeat to Celtic in March 2018, when Odsonne Edouard came off the bench to put ten man Celtic ahead for the first time in a 3-2 victory.

The policy of denying supporters access to games when you know that seats will be vacant is the issue here, not an attack on any one club and Celtic is NOT exempt from criticism.

For several years The Celtic Star has been pushing for the introduction of a Ticket Exchange Scheme for Celtic Park and while there’s been talk that the club are looking at it, it’s apparently not happening this season. So the wait goes on and that’s a problem as it guarantees that there will be empty seats at Celtic Park throughout the season, while there are Celtic supporters unable to get access to the stadium,

That’s madness when you consider that Celtic has a waiting list for season tickets of well over 10,000. These are supporters who want to go to games but have little or no chance of getting a season ticket, given the very higher renewal rates among existing season ticket holders at Celtic Park.

The first option is to create a stadium that satisfies the demand – but a ‘build it and they will come’ approach was only ever something that Fergus McCann believed in. He reckoned that he could sell 60,000 season tickets at a time when it was only the Main Stand that already had them and the numbers were very small. Indeed the old board were never too keen on having season ticket holders as they were regarded as more trouble than they were worth!

Redeveloping the Main Stand by adding a top tier, increasing corporate facilities and the overall capacity to say 75,000 would make a strategically sound move from the club but that’s a debate for another day.

Today it’s the need for a Ticket Exchange Scheme and how introducing that would result in a dramatic reduction in the number of empty seats, at Celtic Park when season ticket holders, for whatever the reason, don’t attend a match.

I’ll give you an extreme example. At the start of last season we moved seats but in our old seats which we had for many a year, the seat next to me was always empty, except for matches against theRangers. The boy paid for his season ticket, recognised that he was putting money into the club but couldn’t make games or maybe couldn’t be bothered. Instead the seat was empty until the Glasgow Derby and there he was as passionate as the rest of us.

Games get rescheduled for TV reasons all the time, sometimes for midweek  evening games and season ticket holders from Ireland can’t logistically make the trip due to ferries, work commitments etc. People go on holiday during the season. Maybe there’s a wedding to attend. Others get ill. It happens. The result is that there are empty seats at most games at Celtic Park.

St Mirren had just under a thousand empty seats at the weekend but Celtic on most match days probably has more, although they do have the income from the season ticket payments.

A Ticket Exchange Scheme would sort this problem once and for all, allow more Celtic supporters who can’t get access to Celtic Park to attend games and benefit the club and perhaps both the season ticket holder who can’t make the game or The Celtic FC Foundation.

And if a season ticket holder doesn’t use the ticket then the club can act in the manner in which for example, Manchester City did at the weekend, contacting this season ticket holder (Carl) who failed to show up for the game agains Ipswich Town with this message:

The issue at Celtic seems to be around the ticket that the club sells for each match at Celtic Park over near the away section. These go on sale via the Celtic ticket office and are snapped up very quickly. A Ticket Exchange Scheme would maybe reduce the demand for these tickets where the club does NOT have season ticket revenue already.

That said the system could surely work something like this. Club announces sale of these match day tickets, if and when they sell out, club opens Ticket Exchange option for the relevant match and only then can season ticket holders unable to attend the game be able to load their ticket to the system.

The season ticket holder would receive a percentage of the revenue or alternatively could donate that sum to the Celtic FC Foundation, with Celtic getting their share.

So that makes Celtic extra money as they are getting additional revenue on a seat that they have already sold plus a supporter in the stadium who would not otherwise have been there, who maybe buys something from the club shop and gets a half-time pie and drink.

It also adds to the atmosphere as Celtic do all that they can to eliminate their own empty seats problem.