A Cup Final ticket fight has been won by the Aberdeen Evening Express some three months after local fans got a raw deal.

Aberdeen fans got almost 7,000 fewer tickets than Rangers for the Scottish Cup Final in May.

Almost 10,000 readers backed the newspaper’s Play Fair campaign.

The club appealed against the Scottish Football Association’s decision, but bosses said they had no right to challenge it.

Now they have backed down and issued a statement saying: “A policy decision has now been taken for future Scottish Cup finals that, all things being equal, the tickets will be equally allocated between the two competing clubs.”

Supporters groups praised the newspaper for its role in forcing the SFA into changing its rules.

Association of Aberdeen Supporters Clubs chairman Jack Douglas added: “The Evening Express did an excellent campaign to get people to sign petitions. We’re disappointed this has come too late for Aberdeen this year, as this was the logical decision.”

Other Scottish clubs also backed the Express’s campaign. A spokesman for Hearts said they had also fallen victim to unfair ticket allocation when they were involved in the 1998 final.

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