BIAS OR COWARDICE? THE DIFFERING TREATMENT OF CELTIC AND RANGERS FANS BY POLICE
- BY LIAM CARRIGAN
- Oct 9
- 3 min read
The external investigation into the excessive use of force by Police towards Celtic fans last season has done little to restore fan confidence in Police Scotland. Fans remain angry at the pattern of aggression and confrontation Police Scotland have shown towards our fans, and certain subsections of the support in particular.
Meanwhile, another club were able to threaten the players and now former manager of their club, to the point where he had to sneak out of the stadium for his own safety, in full view of police, with nothing being done about it.
Call me cynical, but if that was the Green Brigade rather than those Smurfs on Smack, the Union Bears, one suspects kettling and subsequent arrests would have quickly followed.
Why do Police Scotland Treat Celtic and Rangers Fans so Differently?
People of my dad’s generation and older, have always said: “Well, it’s the Polis, what do you expect, we know they’re all H*ns.”
I don’t believe that is the case anymore though. Indeed, I have friends and family who are currently working or have worked in the police force before and, well let’s just say they are far more likely to know the words to “The Soldiers Song” than “The Sash”.
I want to believe that Scottish society has moved beyond these petty prejudices, especially when it comes to something as vital to our daily lives as law enforcement.
However, compare and contrast the “soft touch”, “hands-off” approach Police Scotland took to the small yet extremely aggressive and threatening group of Rangers fans on Sunday at Falkirk, with the full-on, zero tolerance approach they took towards Celtic fans last season, simply for congregating in a pre-arranged area.
Arbitrary detentions, forced searches, straight up human rights violations. It was a veritable tour-de-force of how not to police an already tense situation. “De-escalation” should have been the order of the day, yet the paleolithic attitudes on show from police that day make me wonder if they could even spell the term.
I think putting it down to bias and bigotry is too simplistic. Is there an element of that? Probably.
But more so, it seems to me that Police Scotland are choosing the path of least resistance in their conflicting attitudes towards Celtic and Rangers fans. In other words, Rangers fans have, historically, kicked off big time whenever their supremacist attitudes are called into question. Remember Manchester in 2008? A couple of broken tellies led to a full-scale riot.
I don’t like to use this word, but I have to be true to what I perceive to be the reality of the situation. It’s cowardice. Pure and simple. Police Scotland will not crack down on thuggery, threats, intimidation or blatant racism from the Ibrox hoard, because they are scared of the consequences of doing so.
They’ve seen what’s happened to Neil Lennon, the late Turnbull Hutton of Raith Rovers, and indeed several others who have stood up to these fascists and their master-race mentality. Bullets, bomb threats, violence and intimidation. Nobody wants to live with that, and in that sense, I don’t actually blame the rank-and-file police officers for feeling that way.
Afterall, is it really worth standing up to these thugs when you know your superiors will do nothing to protect you when the inevitable doxing, threats and violence follow?
I want to emphasize that this is not the majority of the Rangers support who act like this. It is a minority, but it’s a very vocal, volatile and dangerous one.
And as history shows us, when such groups aren’t quickly smacked down, they grow, they infest other, decent people with their hate.
One has to wonder where Britain would have ended up in the 1930s if we hadn’t had the “Battle of Cable Street”.
Make no mistake, we’re talking about fascism here. It’s no coincidence that whenever you see these “hotel protests” and other far-right rallies on TV, it quickly becomes a “spot the Rangers top” competition.
Rangers need to deal with this. The police are clearly unwilling or unable to act, but this hate and aggression cannot be allowed to fester indefinitely.
