If you had wished for a domestic game to best promote Brand Scotland, it would have looked a lot like last weekend’s Old Firm derby. Five goals shared in an end-to-end thriller.
A contender for goal of the season from Rangers captain James Tavernier. And the inevitable controversy created by the decision to disallow a goal from Alfredo Morelos. A shining example of two teams’ superiority and ability to entertain in a league awash with mediocrity elsewhere. But I didn’t even know the SFA had someone called a “security and integrity manager” until it was revealed he, or maybe it’s she, was helping police with their inquiries into the threats made against the match referee Kevin Clancy and his family.
The SFA employee’s name, incidentally, went undisclosed – presumably to keep that person out of harm’s way. A showpiece had been turned into a shi****w, if you’ll pardon the expression, because of Scottish football’s fatal fascination with anti-social behaviour. It wasn’t the scale of the offences committed against Clancy that was depressing, though God knows what the hundreds of “potentially criminal in nature” messages must have read like. It was the scale of the offenders’ list that concerned me.
Hundreds of what SFA chief executive Ian Maxwell described as “threatening and abusive” messages directed at an official and his totally innocent family. Hundreds.
This wasn’t some random punter seeing the world through tinted specs in the colour of his favourite team and howling at the moon. Or your local neighbourhood conspiracy theorist convinced everybody’s out to get his club and with boxes of evidence to prove it.
Hundreds of people contributed towards what Maxwell said amounted to the referee’s “safety being compromised”. Hundreds.
Is this the new matchday experience? “Must dash. Got to go home and email a death threat to that referee.” The fall-out from last weekend’s match will heighten tension at the Scottish Cup semi-final on April 30.
And the residual ill-feeling after Hampden will provide a backdrop to the final league derby at Ibrox after the split. That’s the one that will have no away fans because some supporters of both clubs have been found to pose a threat to safety and security by Celtic and Rangers.
And if match officials are going to have their private lives disrupted and be subjected to online terror then that’s the way it will stay. If some people’s reaction to defeat is to behave in an anti-social manner then it’s best not to have hundreds of them inside a ground where lack of self-discipline could become hazardous.
Menacing behaviour must be minimised or something could happen that we’ll all live to regret. I know the majority are suffering because of the actions of a minority – but just ask the Clancy family what the minority can do to you. In the world we used to know as normal, the one without VAR and its inconsistencies, the referee would disallow a goal and have his name vilified in retrospect.
A litany of decisions, for and against the members of the Old Firm, are available on request. Now the details of the match officials’ domestic lives are divulged on social media and the malicious-by-nature get to work.
Single club occupancy of Celtic Park and Ibrox is the only deterrent to prevent escalation of what we already have on our hands at the moment. Would you have trouble makers over to your house? Hundreds of them?
The SPFL has decided there’s no need for Scottish football to follow England’s example and remove the names of
betting firms from club jerseys. There will be a debate over the evils of gambling and whether shirt sponsorship encourages addiction.
Meantime, we’re due a look at the spread of venom inside and outside of our football grounds that’s giving rise to worry over the game as a whole going forward. It’s not European refs we need to guarantee impartiality.
It’s immunity from those currently under investigation by Police Scotland due to their sinister behaviour.
