Celtic taking advantage of the hard pressed supporters yet again and the lack of transparency on their secretive ballots is appalling…
Celtic yesterday announced a pre-season friendly with EPL side Newcastle United at Celtic Park, and it had many supporters saying the exact same thing.
Newcastle are of course a very good side with some terrific players, and will no doubt bring a huge travelling support, but it wasn’t the thought of taking on the Magpies that got the supporters talking, but more of the ticketing prices for the game which start at a rather steep £25.
The game will be played just a couple of weeks before the start of the season and with that in mind you’d think the club would have adopted a common sense approach and made it more affordable to hard pressed supporters, many of whom have young children on their school holidays who want to get along to Celtic Park to show off that new Celtic top with their favourite player’s name and number on back.
With season tickets getting renewed, next season’s kit on sale and in the midst of the summer holidays it’s a lot of cash for the average working supporter to splash out on what is a glorified training session. Many of those supporters who yet again have missed out on the Scottish Cup Final ballot might decide to keep that £25 to go on top of the £50 Celtic saved them this week by ignoring them in the ballot. A few might also renew their season tickets but decide against the secretive racket that allows Celtic to essentially do what they like with the tickets.
How many are being syphoned for an every increasing corporate offer where they are fed at Celtic Park bused over to Hampden and given tickets that essentially reduce what should be given to supporters who paid for the home matches in every round of the cup.
Back to the game against Newcastle United. It should have been made free to season tickets holders, with general sale tickets priced lower than £25. Whilst the hierarchy do a lot of good for the club they also have many faults, and this is one of them. We used to get a pre-season friendly and maybe an early round cup game on our season tickets – not any more we don’t.
Taking advantage of the ordinary hard working supporter comes natural to them, which is a slap in the face to us all considering the cash we plough into the club on a regular basis. More fool us some might think.
A great man once said “football without fans is nothing” the club he managed so brilliantly should take note.
We deserve to be treated better and we deserve better transparency on the way cup final tickets are allocated and the increasing number that are going to corporate operations at Celtic, at the expense of the ordinary supporter on the secretive and discredited HCTS that is clearly unfair and also NOT fit for purpose.
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