St Johnstone chairman Steve Brown has hit out at the Scottish Professional Football League over his club's League Cup semi-final ticket "fiasco".

The Perth club had originally been told they would receive around 500 tickets for Tynecastle’s Main Stand should they sell their allocation for the ground’s Roseburn Stand.

However segregation issues have led to those tickets to be handed to Saturday's opponents Hibernian instead.

Brown blasted the "outrageous" timing of the announcement and said lessons must be learned to avoid any repeat.

In a statement on St Johnstone's website, the McDiarmid Park chief said: "The first thing I want to say is that I fully share in the frustration caused by the delay in the announcement not to allocate Main Stand tickets to Saints fans and I can understand the anger and disappointment of ticketless fans.

"I can assure supporters that from the outset these Main Stand tickets were intended for St Johnstone fans.

"However, with increased concerns about access, egress and segregation arrangements in that corner of the ground being raised by safety and security staff at Tynecastle and Police Scotland the SPFL took the decision that the final approval for the release of these tickets to St Johnstone would be delayed in order to gauge sales of Main Stand tickets by Hibernian FC and maximise the chances of an alternative segregation and operational arrangement within the Main Stand.

"Coming at a time when fan engagement has been recently stated as a key objective for the future of our game I find the timing of this decision – five days before the match – outrageous and I would state that this is totally unacceptable to St Johnstone Football Club.

"I would hope that lessons are learned from this fiasco in order to avoid any repeat of the uncertainty and disillusionment suffered by the people who matter most – the supporters."