Scots park ticket sales row to put their focus on Spain at Hampden
Caroline Weir is adamant the furore over ticket sales has not distracted the Scotland players from their preparations ahead of tonight’s World Cup qualifier against Spain.
Several members of the squad put out tweets last week claiming that only “a fraction” of Hampden’s 52,000 seats had been made available for the visit of the Spaniards, implying that selling one section of the stadium at a time would detract from their ability to draw a bumper crowd.
However the Scottish Football Association responded by pointing out the sales system is the same for men’s home matches and said its staff had been left “hugely disappointed” by the players’ complaints.
Scotland captain Rachel Corsie then suggested there was inequality between how the SFA treats men’s and women’s football.
Weir attempted to downplay the controversy, although she was adamant there were “no regrets” about the way the squad handled the situation.
“I think that is behind us
now,” she said of the ticket saga. “We’re fully focused on a massive game against Spain.
The focus on the training pitch has been excellent. All the players are really determined to put on a performance.
“That’s our number one focus. Events last weekend haven’t affected us from a players’ point of view. We’re feeling prepared going into the Spain game. We’re ready to go.
“It is important that we speak up when we feel strongly about something. That’s what we did last week. We came together as a group and decided that was how we wanted to do things.
“I think Rachel Corsie touched on everything last week so I won’t speak too much about that because
I want to speak about the game, but we felt comfortable enough to do that and we don’t have any regrets.”
Scotland are looking to be more competitive at Hampden than they were when losing 8-0 away to Spain in November. “It was a tough result, a low moment for me personally within the national team,” said Manchester City forward Weir.
“We know they’re a top side, there’s no doubt about that...but we need to be better, a little bit more aggressive and put them under more pressure which we maybe didn’t do enough of in Spain.”