Police must take some responsibility for Old Firm scenes

Police Scotland have been vocal in their criticism of Celtic and Rangers and their supporters after the Scottish Cup quarter-final, rightly branding the post-match mayhem “shameful”, “disgraceful” and “despicable”.

No one disputes that dealing with the kind of feckless football fans who think they can do what they like is a thankless task.

Speaking at the Scottish Parliament, chief constable Jo Farrell criticised the two clubs for failing to immediately condemn their own fans when Celtic punters took to the pitch to celebrate victory after a penalty shoot-out and a rump of masked Rangers ultras charged up the field to confront them. The pitch is the domain of football players, and supporters have no business being there.

Bolstered by stewards on a derisory wage, a line of high-vis jackets assembled on the 18-yard line to keep the two sides apart. Deputy chief constable Alan Spiers described the work of his officers as “brilliant”, while chief superintendent Emma Croft declared herself “satisfied with the policing situation”, adding that “the number of away fans isn’t workable currently”.

The message from His Majesty’s Constabulary was clear. Wherever the blame lands for the ugly post-match scenes, it should be nowhere near their door. And those with no real love of football, Celtic or Rangers, were quick to lend their support, stopping just short of blaming the clubs for the blaze on Union Corner.

If the job of managing 7500 Celtic supporters is now too much for the national police force, that really should be a concern to everyone. Especially when the arrangement seemed to work reasonably well prior to Rangers reducing the allocation of their bitter rivals in 2018, and a bout of ticket tit-for-tat breaking out.

Applying cup rules, the SFA returned a full complement of Parkhead fans to the Broomloan Stand last week.

And, as part of that process, an event policing lead worked with the club safety officer to draw up a crowd management plan and a contingency procedure which covered every possibility, such as Celtic fans storming the turnstiles and taking to the pitch after a penalty shoot-out or Rangers fans in Spider-Man masks running half the length of the pitch to confront them.

In November, Glasgow’s big two contested the Premier Sports Cup semi-final. Both teams were given 21,000 tickets each, and police seemed to handle that perfectly well. Since the Scottish Cup final of 2016, Hampden’s safety plan has incorporated a ring of officers and stewards around both ends of the ground after goals and towards the final minutes of a game. Once a common sight in Scottish grounds, there were no police cordons at Ibrox when the cup quarter-final went to a tense penalty shoot-out.

While no one blames police for the behaviour of feral fans, an independent review panel commissioned by the SFA should certainly ask if they might have done more to deter them. And why the safety arrangements – which used to serve all sides well until 2018 – were changed this time.

According to the most recent figures, Rangers were billed £1.6 million for the policing of games at Ibrox, while Celtic paid £1.5m for fixtures at Parkhead.

Old Firm games cost roughly £53,000-£54,000 per match. Over the last four seasons (including 2021/22), Scottish clubs were charged nearly £9m in total by Police Scotland to recoup costs for security inside grounds.

By utilising the same matchday plan for a Celtic away support of 7500 as they did for a crowd of 2500 for a league game the previous week, they failed to offer much bang for their buck.

That wasn’t the only diversion from the tried-and-tested crowd management methods, either. Away fans were told to turn up three hours before kick-off and complained of being crushed. A number of them were ticketless, lost the plot and found a way to storm the turnstiles to gain entry.

The set-up outside the ground – including bus parking and segregation in Helen Street – was different to how things functioned in the past, and that might be explained by a crisis of manpower.

The last time Celtic had 7500 fans at Ibrox for a league game, Police Scotland had a complement of 17,170 full-time officers.

Since then, the numbers have dropped to 16,416, a decrease of around 750 officers. That’s a 4.4 per cent drop in eight years, and David Kennedy, general secretary of the Scottish Police Federation, blames a lack of resources for piling pressure on a force short of around 1200 officers across the country.

Football can’t control that state of affairs. And, if the police can no longer prevent the hard of thinking from stepping out of line, then the SFA have no option but to take the job on themselves.

Compliance officer Martin Black is collating evidence with a view to dispatching a Notice of Complaint to both clubs. SFA articles insist that a club should “ensure, as far as is reasonably practicable, the safety, good conduct and good behaviour of its supporters at any match”. If Rangers, Celtic or both fail to show that they did all they can, they have a problem.

Fines are pointless. Fans don’t care when the men in grey suits are forced to shell out £30k because it doesn’t affect them one jot. That explains why the SPFL have recently slipped strict liability through the back door in response to pyrotechnics in grounds. To have any impact on the dimmest of minds, fans need to pay some kind of price for their misbehaviour. While locking 50 fans out of a future Scottish Cup game won’t do that, excluding 10 times as many might.

The SFA will also commission an Independent Review to consider safety procedures and recommendations likely to avoid a repeat in future. Top of the list should be finding a way to punish clubs who turn a blind eye to ultras wearing balaclavas and masks inside grounds. Quizzing Celtic and Rangers on how they plan to keep members of the Green Brigade from storming turnstiles and the Union Bears from confronting rival fans when they lose a game of football should also be part of the remit.

Society lives by a set of accepted rules. To gain entry to a theatre, a cinema or a concert, ticket holders need to toe the line. If ultras groups won’t agree to the terms and conditions set by the clubs and continue to flout the law, they should be disbanded and hit with football banning orders. Assuming, that is, that Police Scotland have the means and the will to enforce them.