Extra Tickets Boost for Scottish Football
Scottish football is being given a boost ahead of the new Premiership campaign due to start on Saturday, July 31st, with additional tickets being made available, albeit at the discretion of individual councils.
Rangers, who kick off their premiership opening game at Ibrox against Livingston will have an extra 6,000 tickets, giving them a total of 23,000 seats available for season ticket holders.
Whilst Celtic’s opening match with Hearts will not benefit from the increased attendance they will have 24,500 supporters inside Celtic Park for their opening ‘home’ match against Dundee on Saturday August 7th.
Standard crowd limits for outdoor events under the Scottish Government's Level 0 coronavirus restrictions are 2,000 but with this new arrangement organisers can apply to their local authority for the right to host bigger attendances.
The different approaches from councils are leading to disappointments for some clubs, notably Hearts who will only have 4,535 season ticket holders inside Tynecastle Park for their return to the premiership against Celtic, following a decision by Edinburgh City Council.
Elsewhere, Motherwell are set to have 4,500 home fans at Fir Park on Sunday and have allocated 2,000 tickets to Hibernian fans.
Ross County have been able to offer all of their season ticket holders entry to the visit of St Johnstone, who have sold out their Dingwall allocation and given their season ticket holders guaranteed entry for the visit of Motherwell on August 7th.
Aberdeen will host a crowd of 6,305 for Sunday's match against Dundee United, a slight increase on their recent European qualifier capacity whilst Dundee remain in discussions with their city council ahead of the visit of St Mirren on Saturday.
Celtic had 18,000 supporters inside their stadium for Saturday's friendly against West Ham and thanked their fans for helping them secure a bigger capacity.
Celtic chief executive, Dom McKay, said: "I would like to thank our fans for all the fantastic support they have given us in reaching these levels.
"I would also like to thank all our staff for their efforts and hard work in allowing us to reach this stage, as well as the Safety Advisory Group for all their co-operation.
"We will be doing all we can to work closely with the relevant authorities and welcome our fans back in even greater numbers in the coming weeks."
The Scottish football authorities expect full crowds to be permitted when coronavirus restrictions ease further with First Minister, Nicola Sturgeon, saying she was ‘optimistic’ that Scotland remained on course to do so on August 9 after daily case numbers continued to fall and the weekly figure of patients in hospital with Covid falling to 421 from 577 the previous week.
