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Item 3 is a report from the Scottish Football Association in response to our request for a letter detailing the events surrounding the ticket sales for the Euro 2000 fixture. As committee members have had a chance to read the letter, do they wish to comment on it?
In the final paragraphs of the SFA's response, the chief executive David Taylor talks about proposals for future ticket allocations. He finishes the letter by saying that "appropriate S.F.A. committees" will examine those proposals over the next few months. It would be appropriate for this committee to be kept informed of those deliberations, because we might have suggestions that might be worth feeding into that decision-making process.
I agree. It would be useful for the committee to have such contact during those deliberations.
A report from Glasgow City Council is mentioned in the final three paragraphs of the SFA letter. We should ask for a copy of that report when it is completed.
I am quite happy to do that. Although I am not sure whether we can take any action on the matter at this stage, we need to maintain our involvement in the issue.
I have one further observation to make. Early on, the decision was taken to use a system that relied on credit and debit card sales, which meant that transactions had to be made by telephone. The system probably seemed more of an easy option, but led to the disaster that the ticket sales became. One might say that, with hindsight, one should have looked back to previous occasions; however, such knowledge was already available. When matches at Murrayfield stadium were continually oversubscribed throughout the 1970s and 1980s, the tickets that were left were sold through shops. People knew that they could queue up for tickets in advance, so such sales did not create the outrage that was caused by the Euro 2000 fixture. Perhaps there was too much reliance on computers, software and telephones when tickets could have been made available to the public through retail outlets.
Although I have some sympathy with that, the letter makes it clear that the telephone sales system was chosen to ensure that there was a record of where sales had been made. Perhaps committees will examine the availability and usefulness of such information. However, Brian's point is well made and we will pass it on.
A point that the letter does not address is that there are other examples of good practice. For example, when Celtic and Rangers play each other, segregation and security are very much needed when tickets are being sold; perhaps the SFA could take that on board. In the 1970s and 1980s, rugby did not have the same fan problems that football matches between England and Scotland sadly seemed to attract. There are other examples, from which expertise could be gained, which we might want to feed back to the SFA, in particular how the old firm sell tickets for old firm games.
The final paragraph of the letter alludes to the fact that the SFA is consulting other football clubs about how they handle ticket sales. Perhaps the organisation could learn some lessons from the Celtic-Rangers situation.
Perhaps we should ask the SFA to amplify that final paragraph to find out the reasoning behind the choices that have been made and those that are being considered, instead of waiting for the organisation to tell us what it has decided to do.
That might be helpful.
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