What Michael Nicholson must demand for Celtic fans before agreeing to SPFL league reconstruction plans

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The SPFL have been in the news this week after plans of reducing the Scottish Premiership to a 10-team league were rightly panned by Celtic supporters.

The Celtic fans made their feelings perfectly clear on the governing bodies’ plans to reduce the number of teams in Scotland’s top-flight rather than increase them.

The current status quo of a 12-team league has been much-maligned by not just Celtic supporters but the whole of Scotland as the monotony of playing each Scottish Premiership team four times a season starts to become tedious.

With many fans preferring to see a 16-team set-up, if there are any changes Celtic CEO Michael Nicholson must demand one thing from the SPFL before agreeing to any major shake-up.

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Celtic must demand much-improved away fan ticket allocations

For too long Celtic’s travelling support has been left locked out of away stadiums due to other SPFL clubs’ tedious ticket allocation stance.

For too long has the sight of empty stands in Scotland’s stadiums being beamed into the millions of homes around the UK made our game look like a laughing stock whilst thousands of willing Celtic (and Rangers fans for that matter) are denied entry to watch their team.

Scottish football must be the only business in the world that turns away paying customers to try and prove a point and get the upper-hand over the biggest club in the country.

Now, in the interests of balance, there is an argument to be made that crowds across Scotland are growing, but that still does not take away from the fact that when Celtic visit other grounds in the Scottish Premiership, viewers around the UK are still looking at thousands of seats laying empty.

Celtic should look to the SPFL to resolve this issue before even listening to any ideas of league reconstruction.

Average attendances in Scotland this season compared to last outside Celtic and Rangers

Celtic always sell out their stadium for every home match in the Scottish Premiership, but how does that compare to other clubs across Scotland from the last two seasons?

Out of ten clubs, only two have seen attendances rise in the last two seasons and even those are minuscule.

The stats are there, it’s time to end this away ticket allocation farce and start getting stadiums full again and attract better sponsorship deals for our game.