Ryan Porteous has hit out at failed attempts to get fans inside Hampden for today’s Scottish Cup Final and says last week's FA Cup equivalent “makes us look stupid”.
The Hibs defender is preparing for the biggest game of his career against St Johnstone at the national stadium tomorrow.
But it will played out against a backdrop of an empty Hampden after the Scottish Government refused to move Glasgow out of tier 3 covid restrictions along with the vast majority of the nation last week.
The SFA had lobbied for 3000 fans to be at the showpiece final and last weekend 21,000 were in Wembley to see Leicester beat Chelsea in the FA Cup Final.
Scottish ministers eventually agreed for 600 supporters at Hampden last week. But within 24 hours even that prospect was removed due to the tiering system.
And, looking ahead to his first final, Porteous said: “It will be a great day. It’s just a shame our families can’t come.
“There had to be ways to get fans there, but especially our families. They have to watch it from home just like everybody else.
“For the St Johnstone players as well, everyone wants their family at a national cup final.
“For us not to have that, when they had 20,000 fans at the FA Cup final down in England, kind of makes us look a bit stupid.
“But it is what it is. Our minds now are solely focused on trying to do the job on the pitch and hopefully celebrating with our families afterwards.
“The 300 tickets we were going to get wouldn’t have been enough. It might have been two tickets each and some of the boys would need five or six if they wanted their kids, partners, mums and dads.
“It was probably a lose-lose because trying to decide who was going to be there would have probably annoyed more people than it would have benefited.
“It’s probably a better thing that we can’t have any in rather than just a handful. We probably needed all 300 for family members and friends never mind fans.”
