Scottish FA hit back at women’s team over ticketing row ahead of World Cup qualifier

The Scottish Football Association have criticised their own women’s national team after the players publicly called out the FA’s ticketing policy.

Scotland are due to play Spain next Tuesday in a crucial World Cup qualifying match at Hampden Park, yet tickets are only available for six sections of the stadium, a tiny amount of its 51,866 capacity.

These seats are already very close to selling out and with the SFA yet to announce if more will be put on sale, every player in the squad took to social media on Tuesday night, posting in a joint statement: ‘Following record attendances at recent women’s football matches, the SFA have only opened a fraction of a 50,000+ capacity Hampden Park.

‘How are we expected to grow the game when limited tickets are available for our supporters? Come on @ScotlandNT we can do better.’

Interest in the women’s game has grown significantly in recent years, with 91,553 spectators piling into the Camp Nou to watch Barcelona and Real Madrid last month, a new record attendance for the women’s club game, while this summers’ Euros in England is set to be the biggest yet.

But in a statement released on Wednesday, the SFA hit back at its players claiming that the ticketing process for the Spain match was no different to any other held in Scotland.

It read: ‘The ticketing sales process used at Hampden Park is identical to most across Scottish football, with tickets sold in blocks, in line with ongoing demand. This procedure is long-established for all events within our stadium – including the recent men’s UNICEF friendly against Poland – to optimise the atmosphere for each event.

‘The Scottish FA was therefore surprised by the flurry of identical social media posts from members of the Scotland Women’s