Celtic and Rangers fans will not be present in each other\u2019s grounds for the rest of the season.<\/p>\n
The absence of away allocations has been announced by the SPFL after Celtic challenged Rangers\u2019 decision to give them just 300 tickets for the Premier Sports Cup tie at Ibrox on September 13th.<\/p>\n
Rangers cut the allocation from the recently-agreed total of about 2,500 seats in response to the trouble that marred the Scottish Cup quarter-final clash between the Glasgow rivals in March, when Celtic were given the traditional allocation of about 8,000 under competition rules.<\/p>\n
An SPFL statement read: \u201cFollowing the events of March 8th and the publication of the Independent Review, the arrangements for the forthcoming fixtures were reconsidered.<\/p>\n
\u201cFor the Premier Sports Cup tie at Ibrox, Rangers proposed a reduced away allocation based on its assessment of the circumstances and risks associated with that fixture. Celtic did not accept that proposal and sought a determination from the SPFL.<\/p>\n
\u201cAfter further discussions involving both clubs and the SPFL, agreement has been reached that there will be no away supporters for matches involving Rangers and Celtic in SPFL competitions for the remainder of the 2026\/27 season.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis temporary arrangement will allow both clubs, together with the SPFL, Police Scotland and other relevant stakeholders, to give proper consideration to the findings and recommendations of the Independent Review, take forward the necessary actions and ensure sufficient time is available to plan future fixtures thoroughly.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt will also provide greater certainty for supporters and those involved in matchday planning, while avoiding repeated uncertainty around ticketing arrangements for individual fixtures.<\/p>\n
\u201cAll parties have committed to working constructively during this period, with safety and security remaining the priority.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe position will remain subject to review should circumstances materially change during the season.\u201d<\/p>\n
Celtic manager Martin O\u2019Neill was not surprised by the decision.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think that was inevitable, really, when Rangers were offering 300 tickets, and we refused that,\u201d he said. \u201cReally sad, I must admit, just from a normal punter\u2019s viewpoint. It\u2019s a great, great fixture when the ground is absolutely full. And I think the away fans make this.<\/p>\n
\u201cI can think back of the years gone past, at the beginning of the century, when I was involved, and they were magnificent fixtures, absolutely fantastic. It is quite sad.<\/p>\n
\u201cHopefully the two clubs will maybe get together at some stage or another and try to iron out the particular problems.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s not to say that we haven\u2019t had a few problems in the past, but they seem to have escalated over the last number of seasons, which is a problem.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Celtic and Rangers fans will not be present in each other\u2019s grounds for the rest of the season.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":673265,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[3],"tags":[9,10,20992,18,13,14,6,19,17,11,12,15,16,5,18223,7,8],"class_list":["post-673264","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-breaking-news","tag-breakingnews","tag-celtic","tag-eire","tag-featured-news","tag-featurednews","tag-headlines","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-latest-news","tag-latestnews","tag-main-news","tag-mainnews","tag-news","tag-rangers","tag-top-stories","tag-topstories"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ie\/117216164812495851","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/673264","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=673264"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/673264\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/673265"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=673264"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=673264"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=673264"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}