Scotland First Minister John Swinney says he wouldn’t take teenage son to an Old Firm derby between Rangers and Celtic after newest dysfunction | EUROtoday

Scotland’s First Minister John Swinney has mentioned he wouldn’t take his teenage son to an Old Firm match after dysfunction broke out between Rangers and Celtic followers final weekend.

A variety of arrests have been made after disturbances at Ibrox final Sunday, which noticed supporters of either side storm the pitch following the Scottish Cup quarter-final.

Stewards and cops had been reportedly attacked through the chaotic scenes.

Mr Swinney condemned the followers’ actions as “completely and utterly unacceptable”.

“The risk to other fans, to members of the stewarding staff, to police officers, to players, was just terrible,” he mentioned.

Asked if he would take his teenage son Matthew to an Old Firm sport, the First Minister mentioned: “No.”

But he stopped in need of suggesting future Old Firm video games must be performed behind closed doorways, with out supporters in attendance.

“I would rather that’s not the case, but I think none of us can watch those scenes and think that there isn’t something that’s got to give as a consequence of what happened at the weekend,” he mentioned.

“I want to take time to engage… the clubs and the SFA, to identify what’s the best course of action to take.”

Clashes have flared in recent times when the 2 groups have confronted one another, together with within the 2024 League Cup closing when police had been compelled to make use of particular powers to decrease the bar for searches to happen following reviews of missiles being thrown at officers and the home windows of a metropolis centre pub being smashed.

Mr Swinney mentioned the way in which to cease the violence between the 2 fanbases is for the golf equipment to interact with footballing authorities, police and the Government, including he will probably be taking a look at the usage of banning orders if he’s re-elected as First Minister in May.

“The way through this, I think, is it’s got to involve, first of all, the people responsible being apprehended, and the police are pursuing that,” he mentioned.

“I welcome what Police Scotland are doing.

“There’s also got to be engagement between the clubs, the Scottish Football Association and the Government about what further steps can be taken to avoid a recurrence of this behaviour, because it is just quite simply intolerable that we have that now.

“We’ve just concluded a consultation on football banning orders – we have football banning orders available already, we’ve got to review them periodically to see if they remain appropriate for the times.

“We’re analysing the outcome of that and there’s been a big response to that and we need to do that carefully, then in the next Parliament, we’ll have to look at these issues.”