By Ross Pilcher

Copyright dailyrecord

Both Celtic and Rangers will be 500 tickets short for their Premier Sports Cup semi-final clash in November. The Glasgow giants were thrown together in the last four in Sunday’s draw after booking their places over the weekend alongside St Mirren and Motherwell, who will play each other on the first weekend in November. But there will be a total of 1000 empty seats after both were slapped with sanctions last season fur the use of pyro . Each club was told last season that they could wave goodbye to hundreds of tickets for their next visit to the national stadium in this competition after fans failed to heed warnings ahead of last season’s semis. Both were punished for “large-scale, organised and illegal pyrotechnics displays” at the Celtic v Aberdeen and Rangers v Motherwell semi-finals in November, and the final between Celtic and Rangers in December. The SPFL handed down the sanction after proceedings were undertaken by an independent disciplinary commission. Motherwell were also hit, although their reduction of 800 tickets was a suspended sentence, which will come into effect should their fans feel the need to use pyro during their clash against St Mirren. An SPFL statement at the time read: “All three clubs have been found to have breached SPFL rule H34 in failing to ensure, as far as is reasonably practicable, that their supporters did not engage in ‘unacceptable conduct’ at those matches. “The clubs were also found to have failed to identify or take proportionate disciplinary measures against the supporters responsible for the pyrotechnic displays. “The displays led to a 14-minute delay to Celtic v Aberdeen, a five-minute delay to Motherwell v Rangers, a three-minute delay to the Premier Sports Cup final, a health and safety risk to fellow supporters, players and those working at matches, as well as a significant inconvenience to thousands of supporters at the matches and fans watching worldwide.” Rangers reacted by issuing a string reprimand to punters that failed to listen to repeated warnings. Their statement read: “The club has been consistently clear that the use of pyrotechnics at our matches in any competition is unacceptable and could lead to sanctions. “This has now come to pass with 500 of our supporters to be locked out of a Premier Sports Cup tie at Hampden the next time the club reaches the latter stages of that competition. “A repeat use at any future SPFL (Premiership or League Cup) game will lead to even more supporters — the vast majority of whom will not have used pyrotechnics — being unable to attend a future semi-final or final tie in the Premier Sports Cup at the National Stadium. “Rangers again reiterates that pyrotechnic use is illegal, and will now deprive Rangers supporters the opportunity to back their team in a key match.”