The SFA is at the centre of a row over "unfair" ticket allocations for the crunch Euro 2008 qualifier against World Cup winners Italy, after it emerged many of the junior Tartan Army are being excluded due to a mix-up.
Registered youth groups were allocated 2300 tickets for the Hampden clash against Italy next weekend. But instead of allocating up to eight tickets to each youth group, as has been the norm for big games involving Scotland, the SFA has allowed organisations to have up to 24, meaning that many supporters have been left out in the cold after tickets ran out.
The SFA has 140 youth groups on its register who would share the 2300 tickets allocated. A typical match attracts applications from around 100 groups but many more were expected to apply for the Italy game.
The SFA has already restricted tickets to the official Tartan Army, each supporter being given the option to have one ticket for Italy's visit instead of the usual two due to Hampden's 52,000-capacity.
Groups from Inverkip Primary School, who have missed just one friendly in 11 years, are one of the registered groups that have been told they cannot get any tickets because the SFA has run out.
Teacher Paul Giffney said the SFA should have only allowed groups to get a maximum of eight tickets as was the case when Scotland played France in the early stages of the qualifiers.
The primary teacher pointed out that the Italy game is more significant because it will decide Scotland's hopes of going to the final stages of Euro 2008 in Austria and Switzerland - and it is against the world champions.
Mr Giffney, who said they normally take 20 children aged from nine to 11 to Scotland games, said: "We got our application in on time but it appears that some organisations have managed to get 20 tickets or more and groups like ours have got none which is totally unfair.
"All they had to do was check their databases and find the ones that always go and guarantee them tickets and they could easily have done that. The fairest way is to restrict to eight tickets and make sure everyone gets something.
"We know it is all done on a first come first served basis and we accept that, but my bug bear is that the official Tartan Army had ticket restrictions to allow everyone the chance to see the game that go to the games, and yet it's not been the same with the youth groups.
"We have gone for all these years and have attended all the friendlies, and then when the Scotland games become popular again, loyal supporters like ourselves are not taken into account."
SFA marketing manager Colin Banks said that the reason for the ticket allocation was that they had stuck to a maximum of 24 to youth groups for the whole Euro 2008 qualifying campaign.
"On the application form we send out, we highlight that the tickets are not guaranteed. They are subject to availability and are on a first come, first served basis.
"We have to balance this so that we can satisfy the majority of our customer base and by doing it this way, we do that." www.scottishfa.co.uk
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