Opinion – Celtic only being punished by SFA to appease the Rangers
Celtic is only being punished to appease the Rangers.Our club must act to expose the SFA’s double standards…
We’ve had a couple of weeks now to digest the news that Celtic and the Rangers will have to play their next respective Scottish Cup home ties behind closed doors, due to the unruly, violent and disgraceful scenes caused by the home supporters in the conclusion of last March’s Scottish Cup quarter final tie at Ibrox which Celtic won via a penalty shootout.
Initially I though we should accept the punishment
At the time the Scottish FA dished out the sanctions, I thought, just take the punishment, our supporters were on the park after all, even though they didn’t indulge in any violent behaviour. It’s only one game, we’ll get by.
But the more I think about it, the more unfair and unjust it becomes. And it has to be highlighted that we did nothing worthy of being handed an outright ban of our supporters from Celtic Park, albeit for just one fixture. Celtic has around 55,000 season ticket holders and at least 48,000 were NOT at Ibrox back in March. But they are all being punished because the SFA could not or would not look at each club’s role in what happened that day.
Punishments should be determined by the extend of the charges against each club, not collectively
Yes Celtic deserve to be punished but nowhere near as much as the Ibrox club who were ill prepared for the game and flirted with another disaster.
Celtic should be taking this decision to task. As after all, they have documented proof of the two tier system operating within the Scottish governing body when it comes to turning a blind eye for retrospective acts committed by clubs deemed guilty of similar punishable offences.
The acts I’m eluding to have all been committed by one solitary football club, and the name of that club won’t come as a surprise to anyone.
The club in question is of course our Glasgow Derby rivals the Rangers, and there are plenty of examples to trawl through in recent years since they arrived in the top flight of Scottish football a decade ago.
Supporters of the Ibrox club have been guilty of much more than what the Celtic supporters have recently been chastised and punished for.
The 2016 Scottish Cup Final Riot
Let’s go back a decade to the 2016 Scottish Cup final when scores of Ibrox supporters invade the pitch to confront jubilant Hibees supporters who were celebrating their sides first Scottish Cup success in over 100 years.
That day Several Hibs supporters were assaulted, as police and stewards struggled to keep things under control. Remarkably, after an inquiry both sides avoided punishment.
The following year we witnessed Celtic skipper Scott Brown confronted on the field of play at Ibrox by an irate home supporter. With following trips to Ibrox seeing Celtic players being subjected to several objects being aimed in their direction.
A Celtic physio was scarred for life
Back in 2022 glass from a broken bottle was Scattered across Joe Harts penalty area at Ibrox, in the same game a Celtic physio was scarred for life after being struck with an glass object whilst simply doing his job.
More recently Arne Engels was struck with a coin and could have lost an eye. Many Celtic supporters have been badly hurt by thrown bottles into the away corner and there are many more examples – all of which have gone unpunished.
Crucially there are no similar examples that can be held against Celtic as a club or the Celtic support.
These serious incidents all went unpunished
These serious incidents all went unpunished, and has allowed the Ibrox support carte-blanch to do whatever they deem fit when it comes to their behaviour, without any repercussions for their irregularities.
But lo and behold, they’ve now been punished, and rightly so, but only because the opportunity to impose sanctions on Celtic was also available to the games rulers.
The Scottish FA can’t bring themselves to upset an Ibrox club and their supporters, but it softens the blow if they can drag Celtic into the equation by essentially making it an ‘Old Firm’ matter and framing it that one is as bad as the other. The evidence suggests otherwise.
The SFA’s hypocrisy is staggering
The hypocrisy is staggering from the governing body but hardly surprising. Celtic football club has no other option than to call it out and to take the matter to court. There is time to do that as the first Scottish Cup match that could be affected isn’t until the start of 2027.
Another point here that hasn’t been noted as fas as I know. The team drawn to play Celtic at Parkhead in the Scottish Cup would have in normal circumstances been in line for a significant financial windfall, especially if it’s a lower league team like for instance Stranraer.
Yet Celtic quite remarkably has been punished in exactly the same manner by the Scottish FA despite Celtic raising concerns with the latest Ibrox club and Police Scotland ahead of the match.
Here’s a summary of an excellent response to SFA punishment by Jim McGinley, a Celtic supporter, which was posted on Facebook.
“The detailed SFA punishment and the reasons for it, completely ignores three things.
Second is the findings of the SFA commissioned report into the incident itself.
Second is the fact that Celtic (a) provided specific recommendations to Rangers FC prior to a meeting of the clubs and specifically pointed out that safety and stewarding arrangements were not up to standard and needed improving and (b) those recommendations and comments were ignored and Celtic were de facto excluded from subsequent meetings with the police.
Thirdly, the independent investigation is aware of points one and two above, specifically comments on them, and stresses that the primary responsibility for crowd and pitch safety lies with the home club.
The report also differentiates between the type and class of behaviour exhibited by the two sets of fans, making it plain that one was threatening and indeed violent whilst the other was not.
In these circumstances, treating both clubs the same way is hardly the correct act of a supposedly judicial body, demonstrates a complete inability to administer a reasoned judicial process, and results in a completely unjust and frankly unlawful result.”
Hard to argue with any of that. It’s currently unclear whether Celtic intend to appeal the Scottish FA’s punishment or not but they certainly should.
Time after time Celtic players, supporters and staff members have been attacked, assaulted and abused at Ibrox – with zero punishment dished out by the authorities.
