Hibernian have taken the drastic decision to follow Heart of Midlothian in reducing Celtic’s allocation for games in the Scottish Capital. Ahead of the meeting between the teams on August 11th, Hibs have decided to reduce Celtic’s allocation to 2,930 supporters.
Back in February, there were 3,624 Celtic fans in attendance to see Adam Idah’s late penalty that helped Brendan’s side to a valuable three points. This means that there will be around 700 less fans in attendance when the teams meet in the second weekend of the new season.
🎟️Tickets for the William Hill Premiership away fixture vs. Hibernian on Sunday, August 11 (12:30pm KO) are now on sale to eligible Season Ticket holders.
The Club received a reduced allocation of 2,930 tickets for this match.
— Celtic FC Tickets (@CelticFCTickets) July 29, 2024
Hibs were implored to take action after their Scottish Cup exit to Rangers last year. In a statement, they confirmed that they would take action. Rangers fans pulled out their awful songbook for the game against Hibs, which was picked up by Viaplay’s microphones as the medical teams treated Martin Boyle for a serious head knock. This resulted in Hibs supporters lobbying the club to take action.
Hibs are citing the fan behaviour at Easter Road with pyro shows before kick-off. However, events at Tynecastle in the Edinburgh Derby show that the Leith side should worry about their own fan behaviour. After Lawrence Shankland scored the equaliser, the Scotland Internationalist celebrated in front of the Roseburn Stand, prompting missiles to be thrown from the Hibs end.
Scottish football finds itself in a fairly dangerous position where clubs are using the threat of allocations being cut to quell fan culture, which ultimately leads to more engagement with the league. Celtic receive around 600 tickets for games at Tynecastle with no breakthrough looking likely in ending the shutout. Although, Rangers were able to agree to a larger allocation for games with league intervention and it may be a situation that the clubs need to agree to a fixed amount of away fans that cannot be whimsically taken away.
Absolute muppets the lot of them give any reason you want but when a business cuts its own throat as several spfl clubs seem to be doing i want to pull my hair out stop restricting fan involvement or risk losing said fans altogether couldn’t run a menage