THE TWENTY IS PLENTY campaign last night appeared at the highest profile game of the season so far, the Spurs 2 Bayern Munich 7 match in the Champions League.
Bayern Munich fans in London with a clear message about ticket pricing tonight.#TOTFCB pic.twitter.com/ENbTigrcGM
— DW Sports (@dw_sports) October 1, 2019
Celtic Supporters have been leading the charge in Scotland, amid misunderstanding and the usual social media bickering that goes on among rival groups of supporters. The Bhoys involved had their own Twenty is Plenty protests at the two recent away fixtures at Hamilton and Hibs. The Hamilton SLO even got involved by tweeting his own criticism of the protest, citing the cost that is charged at Celtic Park for their handful of supporters who bother turning up.
He mistook the protest as being aimed solely at his club and pointed out in response that the Hamilton fans pay through the nose to see their team play at Celtic Park.
#Celtic Park Protest Planned – Fan Group Reveals @HereCelts https://t.co/PoAon1g13u
— Celtic news now (@Celticnewsnow) October 2, 2019
The Celtic group involved in this protest – which has resurfaced again after a few years away (seem to remember it was also held down at Rugby Park when Ronny Deila was our manager, the day when Tom Rogic scored that last minute screamer to win the match and effectively end Aberdeen’s league challenge) – this week sent an email to The Athletic explaining what’s going on.
“(Celtic’s) first away game at Motherwell was £30, and the first side to visit us at Celtic Park (St Johnstone) were to be charged £32 and £30 for restricted view tickets. In our opinion, pricing tickets for the product on show at £25 or £26 was already an unreasonable financial demand on supporters, never mind hiking costs every season.
“When considering the poor public transport system across the country and the price of public travel, your total matchday cost suddenly bypasses the £50 mark.
“We have various plans for the rest of the season, including displays at Celtic Park against our own club’s pricing for visiting supporters. There has been some blowback from fans of other clubs because the (displays) have taken place at away grounds and, unfortunately, have been taken out of context as individual criticism of these two clubs about their pricing for Celtic fans only. We had to start somewhere and concluded the best option was these two televised fixtures,” they explained.
They make a good point but in the harsh economic reality of Scottish football their protests are likely to fall on deaf ears.
The Rangers recently charged Celtic Supporters £52 for their tickets on Beautiful Sunday and no doubt Celtic will return the favour when the Rangers fans come along to Celtic Park in tiny numbers at the end of December.
The other clubs in the Scottish Premiership rely on their ticket revenue from these games against the two Glasgow sides. Livingston this weekend will have their stadium filled not by home supporters but by visiting Celtic supporters. The same thing happened when the Rangers were there in the Betfred Cup last Wednesday.
Hamilton, St Johnstone, Kilmarnock, Livingston, St Mirren and Ross County have tiny supports. Kilmarnock did well to qualify for Europe last season then lost to a Welsh non-league side.
During the week, Robbie Savage had another pop at Celtic, suggesting that none of our players would be good enough to get in the Leicester City side, currently managed by former Celtic boss Brendan Rodgers. It was just another attention seeking dig from Savage who probably makes more from the BBC as a pundit that most – if not all – the Scottish sides get from the National broadcaster. Certainly Gary Lineker, Alan Shearer etc do.
Celtic released their Financial statement last Friday and while it showed a large drop in turn-over due to failing to qualify for the Champions League last season, it also revealed the necessity of selling star assets (ie Moussa Dembele) in those circumstances. That compensation from Leicester for Rodgers and his team also helped the numbers look decent enough.
Across the city, the Rangers have consistently recorded heavy losses over the past few years, since making it up to the Premiership. They are in court today with Mike Ashley concerning their merchandising shambles (we’ll let others cover that story), but that makes them even more reliant on the paying punter. Indeed the Rangers fans were asked to pay significantly more that the Celtic fans for the three match Europa League package, indicating the significance of this money.
All the other sides seem to be operating within their means but money is very tight across the league. Three sides in our league – Kilmarnock, Livingston and Hamilton – opt to play of plastic pitches rather than grass and in doing so significantly devalue the league as a marketable asset. Brendan Rodgers reckoned he’d never seen a decent game on these surfaces and he’s correct.
If financial assistance was provided from the other clubs (Celtic and the Rangers in particular) to remove these surfaces and return to playing on grass then the overall product would be better and might attract more money into the game. Rodgers mentioned this last year and suggested that the Scottish Government could be asked to help too.
Does the Scottish Premiership even have a sponsor for next season? No? Ever wondered why?
If you are a season ticket holder at any of these three clubs playing on artificial surfaces then the quality of football that is being served up can’t be particularly good, to say the least.
None of that of course helps the fans complaining about the price of tickets. As we are in the throes of the 9IAR and then hopefully the 10IAR seasons every game is significant. Dropping points against the other sides could be the factor that decides the destination of the title and both sets of fans will sell-out their allocations for away grounds while the destination of the title is in the balance.
The Rangers have a perfect record against the other sides, losing only to Celtic on Beautiful Sunday. Celtic on the other hand blinked first by dropping two points at Easter Road. It felt like a defeat. Another draw and they could jump into top spot. Every game is ultra-important, and Celtic and the Rangers fans will pay the price for the tickets. That’s the way it is going to be for the next year or two at least.
The other clubs aren’t going to look at reducing their prices in these circumstances and particularly when the multi-media money is so low. Turkeys don’t vote for Christmas.
Best of luck to the Twenty is Plenty protestors.
Would cost home Clubs too much money so never really got off the ground, fan groups I spoke to were for it although some concern we'd have home games where away fans were paying less which wasn't too popular
— Celtic FC SLO (@CelticFCSLO) October 2, 2019
