Both Aberdeen and Hearts have released statements after the Scottish FA released details on the Scottish Cup semi-final dates where Aberdeen play Celtic and Hearts take on theRangers. Both matches will take place at Hampden and the SFA have now reached decisions on dates, kick-off times and plans on ticket allocations.
Both Hearts and Aberdeen had demanded 50/50 splits for their semi-final and while Hearts may well achieve that Aberdeen will not, with the Dons paying the price for lower than expected turnouts at the national stadium previously.
‘Yer eyes being bigger than yer belly’
The Glasgow expression about ‘yer eyes being bigger than yer belly’ seems appropriate here and the Scottish FA will do all it can to make sure that both semi-finals are filled to capacity.
If you are an outsider looking in you wouldn’t really leave it to the clubs to achieve that themselves, with so many preferring empty seats to paying punters and it’s something that is spreading.
Vile sectarian abuse
This week we’re reading about the Celtic allocation at Easter Road being cut due to the disgraceful, vile sectarian abuse directed at an unconscious Hibs player by theRangers support at the weekend.
Aberdeen have been given an initial allocation of 19,000 for Hampden which has a capacity of 51,866 and they are NOT happy about this. Their official statement reads as follows:
“The Club requested the opportunity to sell up to 50% of the tickets, with any unsold tickets by an agreed date being allocated to our opponents. Disappointingly, this has once again been declined based primarily on historical ticket sales at this stage of the competition.
“As a result, the Aberdeen allocation for this match will be for up to 19,000 tickets, almost identical to the Viaplay Cup Final in December, split between the South Stand and West Stand, depending on demand.” ABERDEEN FC
It should be noted that this game is the early kick-off on Saturday 20 April (12.30pm) and unlike the second semi-final, it’s being shown live on BBC Scotland as well as Viaplay. Those factors will surely led to many of the less committed Aberdeen fans opting to watch the game for free on their sofas rather than make the trip to Glasgow to watch their side play Celtic.
Hearts are happier than Aberdeen about today’s outcome. Their official statement reads as follows:
“The club put forward a proposal to secure an equal share of tickets, guaranteeing Hearts supporters the opportunity to purchase seats in Hampden’s North Stand. We had to make an extremely strong case for our argument, given the size of our opponents’ fanbase and historic semi-final ticket sales.
“We are, therefore, extremely pleased to confirm that our proposition was accepted, and both Hearts and Rangers will be given an initial 21k allocation of tickets to sell to our respective supporters.
“We would like to thank the Scottish FA for their assistance in this process.
“The door has now been opened for as many Hearts fans as possible to attend and, hopefully, have a special day out. One condition of this agreement is that the club covers the cost of any unsold tickets from our allocation so it is in all of our interests to sell out and give the team the level of backing that Hearts fans are famous for.” Heart of Midlothian FC
So it’s almost certain that there will be more Celtic supporters at the semi-finals that fans of Aberdeen, theRangers and Hearts and fair play to the Tynecastle side for arguing their corner and getting a result from the Scottish FA. No doubt they’ll be raging over at Ibrox when they hear Celtic are getting more tickets.
Tough luck!
Celtic Supporters ticket prices for Celtic v Aberdeen Scottish Cup semi-final…
North Stand Sections C & D – Adults £40 / Over 65 / U-16 £20
South Stand Lower Section I – Adults £40 / Over 65 / U-16 £20
South Stand Upper Section H – Adults £40 / Over 65 / U-16 £20
East Stand Sections F & G – Adults £30 / Over 65 / U-16 £15
North Stand Wheelchair Users – Adults £22 / Over 65 / U-16 £12
South Stand Wheelchair Users – Adults £17 / Over 65 / U-16 £10
East Stand Wheelchair Users – Adults £12 / Over 65 / U-16 £10
