John Hartson has delivered a perfect verdict on the Glasgow Derby ticket fiasco after Rangers’ MD Stewart Robertson confirmed that there would be away fans at the next two fixtures. Meetings in August and earlier this month had no visiting supporters; although, the next meetings will see a return of away fans.
Now, speaking to Go Radio, Hartson produced a spot-on assessment of the ticketing situation, correcting attributing blame upon the Ibrox club.
“This is not Celtic. They only reacted to what Rangers did. They would never do that (increase away capacity first). If Rangers are going to be that shallow and stop away fans, why wouldn’t Celtic follow suit?
“Rangers started off by banning the Celtic away fans, or restricting them. And then Celtic reacted and thought ‘if you’re going to do that, we’ll do exactly the same. I think that’s the proper thing to do.”
“Why don’t they do it now then? Why don’t they allow 5,000 fans in next season? If they were going to do that they’d have done it by now. Why do they have to wait for Celtic to do it and respond?
“At the end of the day, I feel like Rangers have pulled the plug on the Celtic fans and Celtic have reacted. If they hadn’t have done that they’d have continued with both sets of fans in either ground.”
The first meeting of the season only had home supporters after Rangers withdrew the briefs due to concerns regarding the red zone. In the next meeting, Celtic blew Rangers away at the beginning of this month with a spectacular win underneath the lights at Paradise. There were no away fans and the atmosphere certainly didn’t suffer as a result of this.
Rangers cut Celtic’s allocation in 2018 following 4 wins out of 4 since Rangers were promoted. Celtic decided to reciprocate the Ibrox decision by cutting the allocation of Rangers supporters after Dave King decided to cut Celtic’s from 8000 to just under 800.
The atmosphere has suffered as a result of just 900 fans and Celtic have repeatedly reiterated that they are merely following the lead from across the city. It may be better having none at all rather than the hassle of a small corner of away fans in each ground.