SENIOR Scottish Football Association officials today refused to rule out closing down stands in future if hooligans continue to break the law and set off pyrotechnics at matches as they addressed the disorder at the Premier Sports Cup final at the weekend.
The governing body’s chief executive Ian Maxwell and president Mike Mulraney called for ultras who ignite flares, smoke bombs, strobes and rockets during games to be issued with football banning orders by the courts and prevented from entering stadiums.
However, they admitted that locking out supporters en masse is a potential punishment which is being considered as they examine at how to extinguish a dangerous practice which is on the rise across the country along with other stakeholders.
The SPFL have initiated disciplinary proceedings against Celtic, Motherwell and Rangers following coordinated pyrotechnic displays by their followers at the Premier Sports Cup semi-finals at Hampden last month.
They warned that it is illegal to take fireworks into a football ground or set them off during matches last week in the build-up to the final between Celtic and Rangers in Mount Florida on Sunday.
However, kick-off once again had to be delayed to allow smoke inside the stadium to clear after their appeal was ignored by the hardcore element who attach themselves to the Glasgow giants.
Read more:
- Celtic vs Rangers VAR duo off-duty after penalty fallout
- I worked at Man Utd - but nothing prepared me for Rangers goosebumps
- Stewart confirms SFA talks over Rangers penalty as he awaits answers
“Pyrotechnics are a huge problem,” said Maxwell at the home of Pollok United in Glasgow as the SFA launched Pitching In, a campaign to raise £50m over the next five years and improve football facilities across the country.
“What we’ve seen in the last rounds of games at Hampden is unacceptable. We’ve seen kick-offs delayed and we’re aware of the impact it has from a players’ perspective. It creates a potential injury risk to players. I don’t know how much people even think about that.
“We’re seeing more and more supporters having to leave the stadium before the game has even kicked off because of the impact of smoke inhalation. It’s dangerous first and foremost and we need to do something about it, there is no doubt about that. It’s becoming more and more of a problem.”
Mulraney said: “There’s one critical thing we have to remember - it’s a crime. Everybody is losing focus on the fact that it is a crime and that we have legislation to deal with it being a crime.
“It doesn’t matter how much the chief executive of the SFA or a club says, ‘Please don’t do that!’. It’s self-evident that these messages are having no impact. What does have an impact is if you use the tools that are currently afforded to us. We have a piece of legislation which allows for football banning orders.
“We need to ban them out of our game. They are criminals, they are not fans. They might call themselves fans, but they are criminals. Last year we had one football banning order. One! I’m getting asked, ‘What are you doing about it?’. And I’m saying, ‘We will work with anybody to have a positive impact on society and to make sure people are safe’.
He continued: “The police are the specialists and we cannot second guess them on how to do their job. But what we can question - not the police or the courts or the government, but everybody together - is why are we not banning them.
“There were 43 banning orders two years ago. Then it went down to 20. And then, in this last year, there was one banning order. I think it’s reasonable for us to say, ‘Maybe we should be using that tool that’s at our disposal as a society, if we are all going to work together’.
“We can say to them, ‘Please can you ban this person? You’ve arrested them, can you ban them please?’. If we start with that then maybe it’ll be a useful starter for 10 to work out how to deal with people who are committing criminal acts and endangering the person who sits beside them and 300 yards away as the smoke travels around the stadium.
“So please remember, this is a crime and the people responsible are not getting criminalised. It’s reasonable for me to say that’s got to be what we push everyone to work towards. One banning order seems unusual.”
Read more:
- When will Willie Collum respond to Celtic v Rangers penalty outrage?
- Rangers alcohol licence for Celtic game to remain in place
- James Tavernier ready for fans' flak and focused on Rangers revival
UEFA issued Celtic with a suspended away fan ban after a group of their supporters set off pyrotechnics at their Champions League game against Borussia Dortmund in Germany at the start of October and the Parkhead club’s subsequent league phase games against Atalanta, RB Leipzig, Club Brugge and Dinamo Zagreb have passed off without incident.
SFA member clubs voted against introducing strict liability – which would allow the governing body to take sanctions against clubs for unrest regardless of the measures which had been taken before or after games to prevent antisocial behaviour – back in 2013.
But both Maxwell and Mulraney refused to rule out closing down stands in the future if there are breaches of the law at matches.
“What I would say is all of that should be up for debate. Nothing in our rule book is off the table, nothing. But it would seem self evident that if we have this opportunity to impose banning orders then perhaps we should use it a little bit more.”
Maxwell said: “I think there are more and more people going to football now who think that pyro is a thing. And we are seeing that at all ages in a stadium now. I get that there are organised displays, but you are also getting bits popping up randomly. Whether people know that pyrotechnics are illegal are not is probably something that needs a bit of work.
“That (UEFA issuing a suspended away fan ban on Celtic) seems to have an impact, but we do not have strict liability. The slight nuance there is that people possibly see Hampden as a free hit because it is a neutral venue. They think ‘it’s not our stadium and we don’t want to impact on our team in our stadium’. I think they view Hampden slightly differently to that.
“But the ticking system we have at Hampden is electronic now. We haven’t used that for Scottish Cup ties up to this point. But we will from this summer. It’s on an app. We will have more control over where that ticket ends up. Send them a paper ticket at the moment and who knows who is in.”
