SFA PRESIDENT WEIGHS IN ON “FAN VIOLENCE” DAILY RECORD TRIES REALLY HARD TO IMPLICATE CELTIC FANS AS USUAL
- BY LIAM CARRIGAN
- 3 days ago
- 3 min read
What happens when a child misbehaves and isn’t disciplined? What if, instead of the child being made to see that their actions are wrong and unacceptable, various excuses are made and fingers pointed at other, better-behaved kids?
Well, Scottish football over the last few months has shown us the answer, and the latest statement from SFA President Mike Mulraney shows that, at a fundamental level, the powers that be still fail to grasp this simple truth.
Celtic Fans Aren’t Perfect, But Other Clubs Have Far Bigger Problems
Now, this isn’t some propaganda piece designed to say “Celtic good, everyone else bad.” To say such things would be as counter-productive as Mr Mulraney’s own inane ramblings which, as usual, the Daily Record ran today without the slightest bit of questioning or critical oversight.
Mulraney says that more football banning orders are the key to solving the problem.
Over the past 10 years, 504 football banning orders have been issued. Despite the numerous references to “trouble between fans” at recent “Old Firm” matches (their words not mine), The stats don’t actually show Celtic as being one of the major offenders. Indeed of the 504 FOBs issued in Scotland since 2015, the majority have been to fans of Rangers and Hibs.
The article does its best to obfuscate the obvious statistical proof that Rangers have a bigger problem here than Celtic by making reference to the 2016 Scottish Cup final, where many fans of both Rangers and Hibs were banned after post-match pitch invasions following Hibs last-minute winner.
The Daily Record article, whilst using the 2016 final as an excuse for Rangers topping the offender’s table, fails to mention that whilst Hibs almost immediately released a statement condemning any of their fans who acted violently that day, Rangers did the opposite.
They released a crayon-carved scrawling of a statement that claimed Rangers fans “entered the pitch to defend our players and officials”. Doing their best to invoke as much Churchillian rhetoric as possible.
Of course, that was and still is, a complete fallacy. This wasn’t a war guys, no one issued such a call to action, and let’s be honest, if they had, history tells us most of you would have made a beeline for the shipyards anyway.
Anyway, I digress.
Football banning orders only work when they are enforced by clubs in cooperation with police.
As far as I’m aware, despite the game being filmed for live TV and Ibrox supposedly having CCTV cameras everywhere, no-one has yet been caught for the bottles and various other objects thrown at Viljami Sinisalo last month, nor has anyone faced action for a similar assault on Arne Engels and the Celtic bench in January.
The latest publicly available football banning order statistics (which only go up to 2021) Show that Rangers with 285 banning orders had more than double the number of orders compared to any other team in Scotland. Indeed they make up more than half of all football banning orders issued in Scotland.
And remember, football banning orders are only issued in response to proven offences or an admission of guilt by the hooligan in question. So, the number of actual offenders is probably far higher.
Again, Rangers aren’t the only culprits here, indeed Celtic’s own 120 banning orders are a cause for concern. However, given the openly hostile attitude shown by Police Scotland towards certain sections of the Celtic support, I wonder how many of those banning orders were for refusal to cooperate with perceived police over-reach.
Meanwhile, tens of thousands continue to openly indulge in anti-Irish racism at Ibrox every home game and nothing is said by the SFA, the media or the police.
This isn’t just a Rangers problem, but Rangers are the biggest culprits, and until that is called out, and the kid gloves from both the authorities and the media come off, that won’t change.
Like any other misbehaving 13-year-old, Rangers won’t reform their behavior until they are made to see that their actions have real consequences.
