Empty seats policy to be reviewed by club CEO with £300k the prize | OneFootball

At long last it’s happened. St Johnstone CEO, Fran Smith is the first and hopefully not the last to address the absolute madness of preferring empty seats rather than supporters paying good money into the club.

St Johnstone v Celtic twenty minutes before kick-off. That stand didn’t get much busier . Photo The Celtic Star

The two clubs who always seem to be affected are Celtic and city rivals theRangers, where both clubs are usually featured on Sky Sports and inevitably the empty seat embarrassment is shown to the watching audience. And while this might satisfy the warped logic of the home support in denying more away fans access to games it will leave the club’s board members secretly counting the cost by doing the sum of number of empty seas times the away ticket price and realising it’s costing the club a small fortune.

The St Johnstone CEO is the first to make the point that The Celtic Star regularly makes and then gets pelters from fans of St Mirren, Kilmarnock, Motherwell etc on social media.

Celtic fans at McDiarmid Park

If St Johnstone make the top six next season (unlikely but both St Mirren and Kilmarnock did last season) then they stand to make an additional £300,000 in income for zero additional cost or effort – just by allocating the stand differently to accommodate as many supporters (paying customers) as possible to maximise the revenue for the club (business). That in turn allows the club to invest in the playing squad which gives them a better chance of reaching the top six and also a much better chance of avoiding relegation.

Match ticket

I was at McDiarmid Park a few seasons ago for a very entertaining Play-off match against Inverness Caley Thistle and incidentally there were more St Johnstone fans there than that May evening than I have ever seen at McDiarmid Park when Celtic are in town.

Maybe he can be regarded as brave or foolish in taking this matter on but well done to St Johnstone CEO, Fran Smith – everything he is saying to the Perthshire Saints support is spot on.

It all started with a St Johnstone v theRangers Scottish Cup tie a few years ago when the former owner decided to gibe the away support three stands – which they filled. Saints fans were unhappy about that for various reasons, including the lack of consultation. As a result it’s been empty seats/empty minds policy ever since at McDiarmid Park when the Glasgow clubs are in town.

Empty seats

“A bad decision was made without any fan consultation for the Scottish Cup game against (the)Rangers that caused the whole stooshie in the first place,” said Smith as reported by The Courier. “It was a sleeping conversation until that happened.

“At the start of this season there was no cut for Celtic and (the)Rangers fans. They’re getting exactly the same as the league games before. (the)Rangers got three stands for that cup game but every other game has been the two ends and 900 in the Geoff Brown Stand. It was wrongly construed.

“Our current ticket policy is that our fans will be in the East Stand and that will remain the policy through to the end of the season. We were always going to review this at the end of the season.

“We’ve got (the)Rangers in a couple of weeks and Celtic again later in the season. Economically, if we’re not going to fill the East Stand, why wouldn’t we think about maximising income? You’re probably talking about being £75k better off for one game, which is a player.

Photo Vagelis Georgariou for The Celtic Star

“Of course, the rest of the board might not agree with me. That’s the important thing. We’ll discuss it as a board and discuss it with fans’ groups again,” he stated.

“There are a few options. One of them is giving St Johnstone fans the Geoff Brown Stand and the Ormond. “We’d make £35k more doing it that way. There’s the possibility of season tickets with and without Old Firm (sic) games.

“I’ve got to think economically about the club. If people want a better product on the park, we need to bring income in. That could, potentially, include extra Old Firm (sic) income.

theRangers have also messed around with away support in recent years due to Celtic constantly winning at Ibrox.Photo Jane Barlow

“It’s always going to be a contentious one for the club but it’s one we have to speak about again as a board and a club. And we need to involve the fans to make sure we make the right decision. My leadership is all about one club, one city, one community. We’re not saying we’ll give fans full autonomy to make decisions but we want them to feel part of it. They are the club. I want more of our fans to come out and support us in the games against (the)Rangers and Celtic.”

Incidentally keeping the size of the away support down to increase the chances of the home team on the park won’t wash with Fran Smith who sat and watched Celtic putting on a show and hitting St Johnstone for six in his half empty McDiarmid Park.

Hopefully this is the first of many clubs who will follow suit and eliminate this embarrassment of empty seats from the games that are shown live Sky Sports, making our product look much worse than it actually is.

Celtic in the Thirties by Matt Corr, Volumes One & Two, Published by Celtic Star Books, November 2024.

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CELTIC IN THE THIRTIES, VOLUMES ONE & TWO BY MATT CORR – OUT NOW! Order your signed copies below…

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