St Johnstone chairman Steve Brown has issued a strongly-worded statement condemning the decision not to allocate any further tickets to the Saints support for Saturday’s league Cup semi-final against Hibs at Tynecastle.
The Perth club had been hoping to be given 500 extra briefs for the main stand after selling out their initial 3,300 allocation.
However, the SPFL yesterday revealed that because of safety and security reasons, the tickets are now to be made available to Hibs fans.
Brown has slammed that decision saying it is “outrageous” and “totally unacceptable”.
The chairman’s statement reads: “The first thing I want to say is that I fully share in the frustration caused by the delay in the announcement not to allocate Main Stand tickets to Saints fans and I can understand the anger and disappointment of ticketless fans.
“I can assure supporters that from the outset these Main Stand tickets were intended for St Johnstone fans.
“However, with increased concerns about access, egress and segregation arrangements in that corner of the ground being raised by safety and security staff at Tynecastle and Police Scotland the SPFL took the decision that the final approval for the release of these tickets to St Johnstone would be delayed in order to gauge sales of Main Stand tickets by Hibernian FC and maximise the chances of an alternative segregation and operational arrangement within the Main Stand.
“Coming at a time when fan engagement has been recently stated as a key objective for the future of our game I find the timing of this decision five days before the match outrageous and I would state that this is totally unacceptable to St Johnstone Football Club.
“I would hope that lessons are learned from this fiasco in order to avoid any repeat of the uncertainty and disillusionment suffered by the people who matter most the supporters.”