Aberdeen manager Derek McInnes claims “there’s no harm done” after the club was forced to return a large portion of its ticket allocation for the Scottish Cup semi-final against Rangers.
As it stands, Aberdeen has sold 9,000 passes for the match on Sunday at Hampden, after initially pushing for a 50/50 split and being given 20,300 tickets.
McInnes said the club is “anticipating more of a demand,” according to the BBC. “We had a semi-final against Dundee United which was a 3pm kick-off on a Saturday where I think we had 19,000 there.”
Despite requesting an evenly split allocation with Rangers, Aberdeen fans will be outnumbered three to one.
The manager said “a lot’s been made of it,” but pointed out that crowd numbers have not changed much since the height of the club’s success under Sir Alex Ferguson.
“Even Fergie’s teams in the 80s it was quite consistent – 10,000 in Glasgow,” he said. “By and large, a semi-final for Aberdeen – and we’ve had seven of them now in the last five years – we’ve normally had between 10,000 and 14,000. I’m pretty sure we’ll have that next week.”
Earlier in the month, Aberdeen urged the Scottish Professional Football League (SPFL) to provide “more transparency” over ticket allocations for showpiece games.
The club won its battle for more tickets and could have received 20,300 seats for their tie with Rangers at the end of the month.
Originally, Aberdeen was allocated 16,800 tickets, but the SPFL agreed to provide more passes following complaints from the club.
Image: SPFL
Share this