'It feels about right' - Hearts chief aims dig at 'sad' Celtic supporters at AGM after away ticket debate

Hearts CEO Andrew McKinlay believes cutting Celtic and Rangers ticket allocation to 630 at Tynecastle “feels about right” as he took aim at away supporters amid the ongoing ticket fiasco.

The limited number of briefs for travelling fans during the Hoops recent trip to Gorgie sparked a massive backlash from Hoops supporters after the Jambos took the decision to cut all away allocations with the exception of city rivals Hibs last season amid bumper season ticket sales and an increasing demand from walk-up punters for home tickets.

The new regulations mean that Celtic and other Scottish Premiership clubs are allowed just one section of the Roseburn stand, which has led to widespread anger with the Green Brigade releasing a statement last month criticising Hearts for causing “unnecessary division an friction amongst our support.”

Asked by one club shareholder at today’s AGM if the time is right to stop selling tickets for away league matches with a waiting list of 7,000 for season tickets, McKinlay said (as per the Edinburgh Evening News): “I understand that from some of the Celtic supporters. Personally, I think we have it just about right at the moment. I think what we've got to do is to take all the teams other than Hibs to 630. It feels about right.

“I would love some away support not to be here but I do think that it's actually quite sad that there are certain other clubs that can't manage to accommodate away support as part of football.

“What I would also say, and I think it's really important, and I touched upon it in my talk is it's important that we sell out our end of the ground so that we can then open our ticket exchange because there are thousands on waiting lists and I'm sure they look around the stadium each week and think there's loads of seats that are emptying and there are.

“That is the prerogative of a season ticket holder, to come when they wish, and I get that but if we could sell out, then we'd get onto the ticket exchange and that would allow other fans to come and enjoy the experience. As with all clubs, when we publish the attendance at games it's based on ticket sales numbers and not the actual number that come into the stadium.

“Obviously, for safety reasons and other reasons, we know exactly how many are in the stadium and, without giving the exact numbers, when we played Celtic, we were about 5,000 down on the number that we announced.

“When we played Aberdeen last weekend, we were about 3,000 down. So there are plenty of seats in the stadium. It's just how we manage to get to a stage where we can sell them and the way we do that is to sell out the rest of the seats, so we can then go to ticket exchange.”