St Johnstone chairman Adam Webb has announced a U-turn on Celtic’s allocations at McDiarmid Park next season.
After sealing promotion as winners of the Scottish Championship, the Perth club initially outlined their plan to give Celtic and Rangers three stands of the stadium as a way of generating more revenue.
This proved to be an unpopular decision among supporters, with St Johnstone CEO Fran Smith opening the door to a U-turn almost immediately after their initial announcement.
Now, American businessman and Saints chairman Adam Webb has confirmed that the Glasgow clubs will be given two stands next season, amounting to an allocation of around 3,800.
The decisions are yours…
St Johnstone CEO Adam Webb apologises to fans over Celtic allocation
In an open letter to club supporters, Webb said: “In my two years at the club, I’ve had a steep learning curve, but never steeper than the past week.
“The knowledge and passion of our fans have been on display as I have communicated with dozens of supporters about our season ticket launch.
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“Most, but by no means all, of the comments have been negative. As always, we endeavour to communicate frequently with supporters and to be transparent about our plans.
“We failed to maintain these standards leading up to the recent launch. For this, I want to apologise.
“As I’ve stated to many over the past week, it was our eagerness to advance the club that led to these missteps, but they were missteps nonetheless and we will learn from them.
“In light of the general displeasure with the prospect of giving Celtic and Rangers three stands, we have analysed the numbers to determine how many season tickets we would need to sell to be able to make the financial decision to keep the East Stand as a home stand for those matches, which we would much prefer to do.
“We have agreed that if we sell 3,800 season tickets, we will give Celtic and Rangers only two stands.
“This will not equal the profit to be made from selling three stands, but it is close enough to warrant reserving the East Stand for Saints fans.
“We acknowledge this should have been communicated to fans from day one. We should have announced this as a challenge to our fans and made every effort to achieve it. Hopefully this statement is deemed as better late than never.
“The safe standing area will be COVERED for Celtic and Rangers fixtures (unless opened for Saints fans as noted above).
“We understand the importance of this new area to our fans and accept the feedback we have received that only Saints fans should occupy it.”
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A trend in reducing Celtic’s away allocations
Throughout recent years – particularly since Covid – there has been a trend in Scottish Premiership clubs (aside from the obvious example of Rangers) reducing away allocations to Celtic fans.
Hibs were beaten to it by their Edinburgh rivals Hearts, who cut the allocation of the Roseburn Stand to just 650 seats in 2021.
Both St Mirren and Kilmarnock changed the traditional allocation of two stands at either end of their stadiums to just one.
Motherwell and (especially) Livingston remain the two standouts in terms of giving away a large portion of the stadium when the big boys come to town.
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