SFA chief Ian Maxwell encouraged by ticket sales for Poland friendly

Scottish Football Association chief executive Ian Maxwell is encouraged by the response to Scotland’s fundraising friendly after feeling like a “fraud” talking about fixtures with his Ukrainian counterpart.

Scotland’s World Cup semi-final play-off against Ukraine has been replaced by a Hampden friendly against Poland on Thursday and Maxwell hopes both sets of fans continue to rally their support for the war-torn nation.

A £10 donation from each ticket will go to UNICEF’s humanitarian response, which will help provide clean water, food and health supplies plus ensure child protection services continue, both within Ukraine and for those who have fled to neighbouring countries.

Maxwell told the PA news agency: “We have sold about 33,000 tickets which includes more than 4,500 Polish fans who bought tickets in 24 hours over the weekend.

“Unusually, because of the short amount of time before the match, we are selling tickets directly to Polish fans. That would normally go through their association but we are dealing with that and they have flown out the door.

“It’s a good number and we would like to get into the 40s and obviously the more spectators that turn up, the more money we can raise for UNICEF and for everybody in Ukraine, so it’s important we try and do that. We are delighted with the figures so far.

“Thursday night games are generally difficult, it’s a school night and we have a lot of supporters who come from all over the country and Thursday night makes that more of a challenge.

“We were aware when we announced it that we might actually attract spectators that maybe wouldn’t necessarily come to a national team match but because of the fundraising element they would want to show their support. We just want to get as