TalkSPORT analyst Simon Jordan has referred to the current state of affairs as “appalling” and urged the SPFL to intervene in the away ticket dispute between Celtic and Rangers.

Both Ibrox and Celtic Park, the locations of the teams’ two derby matches this season, have been completely packed with home fans, with the part of the venues usually occupied by away supporters made accessible to their own.

The problem has persisted for years—since 2018 to be exact—but there were also no away fans present for the final two league games of the previous year.

 

Rangers attempted to address the matter at the beginning of the current season by providing Celtic with 750 tickets for the initial meeting on September 3 of the previous year. However, the champions rejected this because of safety concerns.

Then, on December 30, Celtic rejected Rangers’ request for the same number of tickets for the most recent game, claiming once more safety concerns.

 

The issue originally surfaced over six years ago when Celtic’s customary away attendance at Ibrox was drastically reduced by Rangers from almost 8,000 to 800 fans.

They justified the decision by pointing to a rise in season ticket demand following Steven Gerrard’s arrival.

Celtic made the same cut in retaliation. Since then, fewer than 1,000 away fans have attended the derby’s games, or none at all in the most recent year.

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Jordan also believes that more has to be done by the SPFL to address the issue.

“In 50/60,000 stadiums, located within miles of one another, I don’t think that 750 fans…,” he stated. 750 people, or around 1% of the stadium, doesn’t seem like a representative sample of the support, in my opinion.

This is just another example of how Scottish football isn’t managed properly. Its upper management need to be telling Celtic and Rangers, “We’re not asking, we’re telling you.”

And we’ll start considering sanctioning you if you don’t resolve this issue.

The biggest football matches in Scotland are these ones. These are the matches that epitomise Scottish football.

It’s disgusting. It’s terrible how they appear, how they’re managed, and how they’ve been allowed to act like kids for this long.

“It’s a terrible endorsement of what Scottish football should be.”