A Labour MSP has expressed astonishment over the perceived lack of leadership in preventing disorder among Celtic fans in Glasgow. Paul Sweeney, representing the Glasgow region, has called for the establishment of an organised fan zone to mitigate future disturbances, suggesting that football clubs should contribute financially to such initiatives.
Proposed measures to curb football-related disorder
Mr Sweeney has advocated for legislative changes to outlaw pitch invasions and tailgating, where individuals without tickets gain entry by closely following ticketholders through turnstiles. He argued that authorities should have anticipated the gatherings with significant certainty, given their recurring nature.
During recent celebrations following Celtic's victory over Hearts, approximately 3,000 supporters congregated in the Trongate area. Police reported 14 arrests, with ten occurring at Trongate and four at the stadium. Officers faced missiles, including glass bottles, while responding to a medical emergency.
Criticism of current crowd management
Speaking on BBC's Radio Breakfast Scotland, Mr Sweeney stated: 'I'm astonished, really, at the lack of leadership that we've had in the failure to anticipate the situation yet again.' He criticised the 'disorganised hemming in' of fans in the city centre and proposed a new approach.
'Why don't we go further and actually create a proper, organised fan zone? Somewhere like Glasgow Green, easily accessible, with large spillover areas, enough distance between nearby buildings and premises so that the risk of vandalism is low,' he suggested.
Call for stricter penalties
Mr Sweeney urged Scotland to follow England by introducing legislation to ban pitch invasions and tailgating, and said clubs should be 'sanctioned if necessary'. He noted a shift in youth culture, where 'the young team culture of previous generations has now been imprinted onto football identities rather than local territorial identities', leading to delinquent behaviour around football clubs.
Gordon Smith, former chief executive of the Scottish Football Association, described the weekend scenes as 'horrendous'. He supported making pitch invasions illegal and called for team punishments, including point deductions, if fans break rules. 'That means that the fans themselves would know that this could have a major effect on our team trying to win a tournament, trying to win a league – and that's the only way I think that would make any difference,' he told BBC Scotland.
Council rejects fan zone idea
Glasgow City Council dismissed the proposal for a fanzone, stating: 'It simply isn't credible to think that people who want to fight among themselves, vandalise buildings and infrastructure and throw bottles at the emergency services will attend a fanzone – or that any responsible organiser would consider letting them in.'
A council spokesman added: 'Glasgow is unique in Europe in that a team from the city has won the league every season for the last four decades. This means we are likely to have fans celebrating in most years and, while the city has offered clubs senior technical support, it is clearly not possible for the council to bear that cost. We have been working with the city's two biggest clubs for the last year to look at how we reduce unacceptable ad-hoc celebrations. Although the behaviour of a minority of supporters on Saturday was deplorable, the numbers attending Trongate and Merchant City were significantly down on previous years.'
