Brendan Rodgers blames Rangers for Old Firm fan ban

Celtic manager Brendan Rodgers claimed his club had no option but to shut out Rangers fans after their rivals failed to keep their side of the bargain.

There will again be no away supporters at Celtic Park on September 1 and for Rangers' home match on January 2 despite an agreement, brokered in talks with the Scottish Professional Football League in March, for visiting allocations of about five per cent.

Fresh talks between both clubs and the SPFL reaffirmed that commitment beyond those two matches but Rangers had previously claimed they were "taking all steps towards fulfilling that agreement" before New Year.

However, with Philippe Clement’s team playing at Hampden Park amid ongoing delays to renovations of the Copland Road stand at Ibrox, Celtic were unconvinced that the Broomloan end would be ready to accommodate their fans in January and decided not to offer Rangers tickets for their home match.

Rodgers declared he was "disappointed for both sets of fans" and added: "Listen, it’s not complicated. I believe there was an agreement in place to carry out works to ensure that it’s in place for both sets of supporters to come.

"Celtic have been working on that for a number of months. I know that and I know the work that has gone into it and the investment to ensure that everything was right for this fixture.

"But you can only do that if the agreement is upheld with both. So if we can’t guarantee that, then sadly we aren’t able to open the gates for the away support for this one."

Disagreements over away allocations surfaced in 2018 when Rangers tore up the long-standing convention that saw about 7,500 fans travel across the city on derby days and reduced that figure to around 10 per cent of that total. Inevitably, Celtic