.png)
6 hours ago
1
Violence after Sunday’s Old Firm game in Glasgow was “completely and utterly unacceptable”, Scotland’s first minister has said. Fans stormed the pitch in what police described as “shameful” scenes, with a number of arrests made, after Celtic beat Rangers on penalties at Ibrox in the Scottish Cup quarter-finals.
“The violence after the Old Firm game yesterday at Ibrox was completely and utterly unacceptable – there is no justification for it whatsoever,” John Swinney said. “There was severe danger applied to fans and to police officers and to stewards, it was completely unacceptable in every respect.”
Swinney said Police Scotland had his backing to go after and arrest those involved and that he hoped to work with the clubs and the Scottish Football Association to try to avoid a repeat.
Pyrotechnics were used by those invading the pitch, which Swinney said “exaggerates and escalates that level of danger”, and he said the government needed to work with authorities to ensure they are not brought into grounds.
Swinney’s comments came after Stuart Murphy, the chief executive of the Scottish Football Fans Association, told BBC Radio Scotland: “I’m angry on behalf of the majority of all decent fans, who will all feel tarnished and stained by that debacle yesterday which is the only way to describe it. I was at the Old Firm Cup final 45 years ago and 45 years on, we’ve not moved on.”
After the 1980 Scottish Cup final at Hampden, the two sets of supporters clashed on the pitch, resulting in 200 arrests and a ban on the sale of alcohol in sports grounds in Scotland.
The former SFA chief executive – and former Rangers player – Gordon Smith told the same programme he would have been looking at banning away supporters during Old Firm matches if he were still in charge of the footballing body. “If there had been no away fans at the game yesterday, you wouldn’t have had anything like that,” he said.
