Most seats are priced at £35 for adults and £15 for over-65s and under-15s, which means that a day out at Hampden will be unaffordable for many families.
Take ours for example. My sons are evenly split, with one a die-hard Jambo, the other a dedicated Hibbee. It would cost them £150 just to get seats for them and their four offspring, with at least another £100 on rail tickets. And then one of them would want to make the return journey to Glasgow for the final, two weeks later, on April 16.
Sadly, the cost-of-living crisis means that both will probably have to stay at home and watch the big game on TV instead of enjoying the match live. They have yet to decide whether they will watch in separate houses.
They won’t be the only fans who will have sacrifice a day out at Hampden because tickets are out of their budget. Both Hibs and Hearts have criticised the Scottish FA’s pricing policy, with Hibs hinting at some tough conversations between the club and the game’s national administrators.
In a statement released last week, Hibs management stressed that football should be affordable for everyone. They said: “We explained this in detail to the SFA, however, they have not moved on their decision, which is incredibly disappointing and has caused us great frustration.”
Football is nothing without fans, as we found out over the last two years when the pandemic forced teams to play in empty stadiums. The eerie sound of silence that greeted the players’ every move gave each game the disconcerting feel of a computer game.
No-one expects to watch a big game on the cheap, and there has always been a premium on the final stages of the Scottish Cup. But if the Scottish FA continue to price fans out of the game, they may find they cannot fill Hampden. And no-one wins if the stadium is half-empty.