Simon ... why the 'eck should Rovers shoot themselves in the foot by only selling 25,000 tickets when they can benefit from this draw and sell 30,000 plus ?
No-one's misjudged anything - how the hell can John Williams go into a meeting with his Celtic counterparts and argue we need more than 2,800 tickets there ? They'd say ha ha Mr Williams, you took 1,400 to Manchester, 800 to West Brom ... and you want us to alienate our own fans by going beyond the UEFA stipulation in order to allow your fair-weather brigade a ticket to Glasgow ...
Their fans would be up in arms as we are now - as it is everyone's within the rules, Rovers are ensuring revenue is maximised (the opposite was true agsinst CSKA), and most importantly every measure is in place to stop Celtic fans watching from the JW and CIS. Again I say it, the fury and indignation from home fans surrounded by invaders goes far beyond the annoyance at a perceived shortage of tickets.
Tris,
Celtic fans will try to get into home areas no matter how many tickets we give them - there are simply too many of them.
I'm also certain that we could sell out Ewood with home fans using the current restrictions (home ticket stubs, name on database etc). The anticipation for this game is similar to Cardiff.
However, another way of making sure we sell out Ewood is to let season ticket holders buy extra tickets after everyone else has had a chance - making it clear that if they are bought for Celtic fans then they will have their Season Ticket confiscated.
I'm a season ticket holder and I've had 4 requests from occasional Rovers supporters and general footy fans for tickets to this game. I'm sure most season ticket holders can tell similar stories.
All in all I really can't see why the club couldn't have said to Celtic - "We'll give you 3000 to start with and if we've any left, say a week before the game, we'll let you have more". That way we at least try and fill Ewood with home fans and make the home leg sound like a home leg.
