Celtic football club are not happy with the Scottish Professional Football League after the body decided to move their League cup tie from Glasgow to Edinburgh.
There had been two league cup ties scheduled to take place in Hampden Park on the 28th of October, with Celtic set to take on Hearts at 7.45pm with Rangers and Aberdeen the early kick off at 12pm.
But after widespread criticism of this decision to have four sets of fans come to the same stadium in one day, the SPFL board have decided to move Celtic's tie to Edinburgh, much to the chagrin of the SPL Champions.
In a statement on their website the club bemoan the fact that the decision to move their tie to Edinburgh was not put to ballot.
Here is Celtic's statement in full:
Following today's SPFL Board meeting, at which it was decided that Celtic's Betfred League Cup semi-final against Hearts will now take place at Murrayfield Stadium in Edinburgh on Sunday, October 28, with the other semi-final between Rangers and Aberdeen being held at Hampden later the same day, Celtic Football Club has released the following statement.
The SPFL Board's decision not to hold a ballot to decide the venues of the forthcoming semi-final matches is both irrational and discriminatory.
Celtic recognised there was a genuinely difficult problem to resolve. All we asked for was equity of treatment – in other words, a simple ballot of which game went to which venue, so that all clubs would have a 50-50 chance of playing at Hampden.
We understand that those bodies consulted, including the police and broadcasters, had no preference whatsoever on which match should take place at each venue and, therefore, there was only one appropriate method of reaching a fair outcome.
The SPFL Board have been unable to produce logic or reason for turning down our modest request. Instead, they have arbitrarily decided that a chosen game should stay at Hampden and the other should go to Murrayfield.
The interests of our club and supporters have been subordinated to a diktat from the SPFL board which is as unfair as it was unnecessary.
Celtic Chief Executive Peter Lawwell was excused from the SPFL board meeting due to the subject under discussion.
