East Kilbride in the dark over SFA’s Hamilton decision

East Kilbride have written to the SFA for an explanation over the decision to play their Scottish Cup tie against Celtic at New Douglas Park.

With a capacity of just 6,000 at NDP playing the match in Hamilton will restrict the gate money from the match although live television coverage will mean a £70,000 pay out for each team.

Switching the match to Firhill (capacity 10,887) or Fir Park (capacity 13,472) would have brought in an additional £100,000 gate money to be split between the clubs in the biggest pay day in East Kilbride’s history.

News that the match would be played at Hamilton emerged shortly after East Kilbride’s 2-0 win over Lothian Thistle Hutchie Vale with Mark Horner in the dark about the reasons for the decision.

The EK chairman told STV: “We have written to the Scottish FA asking them to clarify how they made the decision to host our cup tie against Celtic at NDP.

“We just want to know how the decision was reached. The club do not even know how much it would cost to host the game at NDP. We wrote to Hamilton [when options were being considered] but they never came back to us.”

SFA rules state that when moving venue a cup-tie should be played at the nearest ground with an equivalent capacity.

East Kilbride’s K Park can only hold 600 fans with a small stand running three quarters of the length of one side of the stadium.

While NDP is the closest senior ground moving the match a further three miles to Fir Park would allow twice as many supporters to attend the match.