St Johnstone v Celtic – Ticket office confirms allocation for trip to McDiarmid Park

The Celtic Ticket Office this afternoon confirmed the away allocation for Celtic’s trip to McDiarmid Park to take on St Johnstone at the end of September…

The Perthshire club’s new owner last week signalled a cut in the allocation for the visits of both Celtic and theRangers, with the Saints fans looking to ban the supporters of the latest Ibrox club after the assault on the St Johnstone SLO ahead of the league match at Hampden last month.

Any reduction in the Celtic allocation appears to concern only the small section at the corner of the main stand, the Celtic support still receiving both stands behind the goals at McDiarmid Park.

The Celtic allocation is confirmed at 4,390 tickets, which will be snapped up by Celtic supporters. Indeed Celtic could probably sell another 4,390 tickets on top of that but we’ll end up watching a match either at the stadium  where there will be at least 4,390 empty seats, or alternatively on television.

Adult tickets for St Johnstone v Celtic for the Celtic support are priced at £33 and concessions at £20 (under 20 & over 65). Let’s assume that the average is £26. Multiply that by 4,390 empty seats and the lost revenue to St Johnstone is £114,140. As they are guaranteed three home games against the Glasgow clubs that’s a not insignificant £342,420 in income that is simply being refused. Add to that the extra food and drink sold and the figure could be as much as £400k.

The SPFL for the League Cup and the SFA for the Scottish Cup, through their own costly past experiences, make sure that clubs only get tickets that they can sell for cup matches at the national stadium.  When the new Saints owner sees this for himself the maybe he’ll adopt a similar approach?

And the issues that the home support all moan about from the travelling support for both Glasgow clubs often centres around the pyros, smoke bombs and chants which invariably come from the young team Ultras the Green Brigade/Bhoys Celtic from our own support and the UBs for theRangers.

Yet surely they realise that these Ultras always get tickets anyway, probably because both Glasgow clubs recognise the noise and colour that they bring to the away games?

St Johnstone, like every team in the Scottish Premiership is entitled to look after their own supporters and that should come ahead of the away support in every instance. But there is also to club’s own position financially to consider as well as the good of the game in Scotland.

The night Celtic won away from home in Amsterdam against Ajax in the early 1980s, Aberdeen, Dundee Utd and Rangers also won their European matches. We are miles away from that these days.

We could be playing many more games to packed stadiums than is currently the case and with money tight in the Scottish game everywhere except Celtic Park, then is crazy that this is seen as a sensible policy that seems to run across so many clubs in the Scottish Premiership.