Chris Sutton rips into Celtic rivals' MD Stewart Robertson over fan allocation

By David Walton

January 13, 2022

Chris Sutton has called out Rangers Managing Director Stewart Robertson for failing to amend the away-fan ticket allocation for upcoming Glasgow derbies.

Back in 2018, the Ibrox club slashed Celtic’s tickets at Ibrox by over 6,000 seats to give us a capacity of 800 in Govan. Celtic responded by doing the same for Rangers fans at Parkhead.

Things haven’t changed since. Rangers have seldom decided to speak up on the issue. Today, however, saw Robertson state that his club’s supporters are happy with the current arrangement and that he will continue to prioritise their season-ticket holders’ opinions [Daily Record]. It’s fair to say Sutton was anything but amused on Twitter with that response:

Celtic are due to face Rangers at Parkhead on February 2nd. The Hoops will the travel to Ibrox on April 3rd. But the ticket situation between the 2 clubs shows no signs of changing anytime soon.

The fixture has been diluted in recent years due to the lack of noise coming from the away section. Due to the slashed tickets, the atmosphere is instead dominated by the home support – taking something away from the uniqueness of the fixture.

And unfortunately, Rangers have made their opinion clear on it as they’re happy to continue their pettiness.

Stewart Robertson can’t see the irony in his ticketing decision

Sutton is absolutely bang on when it comes to Robertson’s comments in the past. He’s the first to bash the SPFL and claim that Scottish football doesn’t sell itself enough. Yet he’s happy to take something away from the biggest fixture the national game has to offer.

It’s difficult to take anything he says regarding the improvement of Scottish football seriously then. Why should we? He clearly isn’t concerned with what’s best for the game here when he bows to pressure because Celtic were too dominant at their ground in the past.

It’s hard to view the decision in any other manner. After all, are Rangers seriously going to tell us that this decision is in the best interests of the fixture? Sure, there’s self-interest involved, but it was a decision that didn’t need to be made back in 2018 and doesn’t need to remain the same for 2022.

It’s embarrassing stuff. Of course we’ll have the rest of Scottish football now saying we’re as bad as each other and all the rest of it. But Celtic have to look after their own supporters. If it was down to the Hoops, then clearly changes would be getting made as soon as possible.

But Rangers’ unwillingness to budge is continuing to set a dreadful tone that only increases hostility. It’s extremely poor stuff from a club so desperate.

One day things will surely go back to the way they were. Unfortunately, however, it doesn’t look like happening anytime soon.

In other news, Daizen Maeda’s class appraisal of Celtic boss Ange Postecoglou