Sturgeon: Rangers did not do enough to prevent mass title celebrations
The First Minister has hit out at the club after fans congregated in large numbers to celebrate the team’s title win in contravention of Covid rules.
Nicola Sturgeon has said Rangers “did not do nearly enough” to help avoid fans celebrating after their league victory.
Fans congregated in George Square and outside Ibrox Stadium after their side took their first top-flight title in 10 years.
On Tuesday, the First Minister told Holyrood told MSPs she shared the “anger” over the “disgraceful” behaviour and that she would be speaking with Police Scotland’s Chief Constable (Iain Livingstone) later that day to avoid a similar situation in future.
She said: “However, no one should doubt the deeply invidious situation that behaviour like this puts the police in as they discharge their responsibility to protect public order and safety.
“We will also be having further discussions this week with the football authorities and with certain football clubs who, in my view, need to show much more leadership.
“Let me be clear, in making these comments, I don’t care about the colour of the shirts.
“I said some harsh things about Celtic’s decisions at the start of this year.
“And as far as I am concerned in this case, Rangers Football Club did not do nearly enough to help avoid this situation arising at the weekend.
“The fact is that elite sport is being allowed to continue just now so that fans – deprived of so much else in life right now – can continue to watch and support their teams.”
It comes after Rangers wrote to the First Minister following strong criticism of the club’s approach to dissuading its supporters to celebrate at the weekend.
Deputy First Minister John Swinney had said the “silence from Rangers was deafening” when speaking about the issue at the Scottish Government’s coronavirus briefing on Monday.
The club said in a statement to Ms Sturgeon: “It is particularly disappointing that there has been a lack of acknowledgement from the Scottish Government to the wide range of efforts we undertook to limit public safety issues.
“It is also particularly disappointing that Mr Swinney has chosen to lambast Rangers publicly, given the fact that we had proactively initiated engagement with Police Scotland, the SPFL, the Scottish Government as well as a local MP.”
The letter went on to list 10 events in which it claims to have made efforts in recent weeks.
Later on Tuesday, Rangers manager Steven Gerrard also hit back at the suggestions more could have been done.
He told ITV News: “I was asked by the club to remind fans to stay safe but I’m human, I can understand the reaction but, moving forward, we must remain calm and safe.
“It’s clear we were in constant chats with police to do all we could to make it as safe as possible but when you’re in that moment, and you’ve been through that as fans and players, the work we’ve put in, I hope there is some understanding.
“I can understand the reaction, we are going through a pandemic. I can say from the bottom of my heart we did everything we could to calm that situation down.”
And on winning without having any fans in the stadium, he added: “It’s the achievement, it’s the historic moment, no-one can take this away.
“In an ideal world we’d love fans there, if anyone deserves to be in the crowd it’s the two clubs most important to me.”
Meanwhile, Scotland’s top police officer has asked John Scott QC to scrutinise the force’s handling of the unlawful celebrations in Glasgow at the weekend as part of the Independent Advisory Group (IAG) which look at the force’s handling of coronavirus powers.
Chief Constable Iain Livingstone said: “I have asked Mr Scott to consider the events of the weekend at the next scheduled IAG meeting on Friday, having regard to the fundamental human rights principles of legality, necessity and proportionality, and to consider any relevant issues for the policing of future events over the coming months.”
Police made 28 arrests and seven people were issued with fixed penalty notices or will be reported to the procurator fiscal.
The congregations took place despite coronavirus legislation which forbids such gatherings due to the dangers to public health.
Reasons for arrest included assaulting police officers, breaching coronavirus regulations, disorder, use of flares and sectarian breaches of the peace.
