Hearts sabotage Murrayfield ticket sales to leave thousands of empty seats

For the second year running Celtic season ticket holders will be locked out of a cup semi-final as they look in on swathes of empty seats.

Last season Hibs sold seats in the North Stand at Hampden while thousands of bright red seats in the West Stand at Hampden went unsold with Celtic restricted to 26,000 tickets.

Despite that problem the SPFL have allowed Hearts to sell their sections of the West and East Stands closest to the Celtic support first while thousands of seats in the South Stand (behind the goal) go untouched.

With a restricted ticket sale Celtic have almost sold out their allocation of 30,000 tickets with Hearts unlikely to shift more than 20,000.

Light blue- sold out

Blue- tickets available

Pink- Not yet been released

If Hearts had been told to sell from the corners northwards additional tickets could have been allocated to Celtic supporters in the week before the match.

That would have given Hearts fans an incentive to buy, now that the tickets closest to the Celtic support has been sold their fans have little interest and no incentive to buy up tickets.

Ticket money from both semi-finals will be split between the four competing clubs once ground rent and other costs are deducted.