Hibs Chief Executives Anger Ahead Of Semi Final Clash With Celtic

A few weeks back for some reason I turned on the Edinburgh derby on TV, I won’t make that mistake again. In what is supposed to be the biggest game of the season for Hibs and Hearts fans I could not believe there were so many empty seats.

It is not like Easter Road is a 50,000 all-seater stadium, it has a capacity of 20,000. With almost 4000 tickets giving to the away support, Hibs could not muster up 16,000 fans at home for their big game of the season.

Still, their chief executive feels hard done by after the SPFL awarded Celtic a higher allocation for the upcoming semi-final at Hampden which will also hike up prices for Hibs fans.

Leeann Dempster as reported by the BBC said:

“We accept the need to ensure the best possible attendance” but that it would have been “reasonable and practicable for the SPFL to accede to our request to retain a higher number of less expensive tickets,”

“The decision taken means the vast majority of Hibs fans now wishing to go to the game will have to pay the higher price ticket regardless of their age or status.”

The irony in this is that the Celtic fans campaign “Twenty Is Plenty” which aims to bring ticket prices down all over Scotland for games was slated by some sections of the Hibs support.

Celtic and Hibs will face off on 2nd of November after a dress rehearsal a few weeks back saw a 1-1 draw. Even for the visit of the champions, there was a lot of empty seats around Easter Road while the away end was packed with Celtic fans.

Celtic released extra tickets today on their website only for them to be sold out in hours.