As most people are aware, the Ibrox club’s fans have been told that they will not now be allowed into the stadium in Lyon for Thursday night’s game. This was after the club had been allocated 2000 tickets just last week.
The reversal is stunning. If this was Celtic fans I would be frankly appalled and raising 99 kinds of Hell and demanding answers from the club.
To be honest, their club seems rabbit in the headlines shell-shocked by the news.
They would have been even more stunned when they read the stated reasons for the ban.
I had thought, upon hearing it, that yes there were global health care issues and even a little bit of the French government getting some payback against Johnson and his band of xenophobes in Downing Street for the recent escalation of the migrant crisis; what better way to send a message subtly than to slap about a bunch of football fans?
But in fact, this is a much bigger story than that, and with deeper roots.
According to a French newspaper, the decision came about in no small part because the Interior Minister over there – in charge of policing amongst other things – branded the Ibrox travelling support as hooligans in his recommendation that their fans not be allowed to attend the game.
In that paper, he referenced “recent events which surrounded the trips of the Rangers in the Europa League,” branding their fans as “frequently a source of public disorder (including) violent behaviour.”
In another segment, talking about how their fans had been largely forbidden from making trips to Prague and Copenhagen the interior minister pointed out that” they have repeatedly bypassed [these] prohibitions.” And a final segment focussed on the appalling behaviour of the Ibrox fans at the home match, where the Lyon coach was vandalised.
In discussing that night, the Interior Minister pointed out that “an attempted brawl between supporters at risk was interrupted by the police and the official OL club bus was degraded.”
I recall a lot of Ibrox fans feeling that was terribly funny at the time.
I wonder if any of those sniggering at it were booked for the away trip.
Look, nobody likes to see football fans mucked about like this.
As I said, if this was us I’d be desperately unhappy and feel terrible for the supporters in question, but there is an element which follows the Ibrox club abroad which has caused mayhem everywhere its been in the last few years and we’d all heard whispers about trouble in Copenhagen and Prague which the Scottish press had gone out of its way not to familiarise itself with.
It was always going to come back to haunt them somewhere. European police forces trade intel on this stuff and they have a bad, bad reputation which explains, in some ways, why foreign cops are often so “heavy” with them.
So really, these aren’t normal circumstances and sympathy is a difficult emotion to muster.
That a member of the French government has been so outspoken in his condemnation of them shows how badly their reputation stinks on foreign shores.
Many thousands of their fans will probably still travel to Lyon, and with no game to get into there is no limit to the trouble they might cause. Not that this will emphasise the point or anything.
Not that it will help them the next time they are abroad.
You mentioned a couple of times about how you would feel if this happened to Celtic fans, well it WOULDN’T because Celtic fans are welcome everywhere BECAUSE of their good behaviour.
Celtic fans were awarded a fair play award for their behaviour in Seville and the Eufa president held them up as the leading example of how football fans should behave on away trips.
Ah, what’s music to my ears, is real bad news for ‘that lot’ so it’s brightened up a dreary, wet miserable night in Ambrosia.
My only hope now is that more European cities see what has transpired here and in turn that starts a domino effect with more cities banning them.
Their reputation precedes them and rightly so, they are human vermin and really should be treated with the contempt that they regularly dole out on nearly every European visit.
IF more cities decide to ban them well, for me, that is a good thing.
Better still, this ISN’T a football governance issue, it’s A CITY BANNING KNOWN HOOLIGANS and has nothing to do with football governing bodies.ie.UEFA.
It’s a city protecting itself and their inhabitants PLEASE let this be the start of bans galore for them, they deserve everything they get, and imho, it’s been a long time coming,
Last few years? This has been going on for decades.The term ‘hun’ was coined by an english judge who described them like ‘coming over the borderr like marauding huns’ after they played Sunderland i think it was.And that term stuck with them nothing to do with religion as they like to try to point to these days.
Why attempt to emphasise something I never said?
I didn’t say ‘last few years’ Dex, closest I said was, ‘that’s music to my ears’ sounds similar but has nothing else in common with what you thought I said.
Regardless they’ll get everything they deserve and not before time.
And I also hope many of them travel, we all know what will come of that, after inebriation they won’t be able to stop themselves heading to the pubs around stadium.
The gendarmerie will swiftl ensure their understanding who is not ‘ra peepel’ they will treat them with the contempt they so truly deserve.
I’ll have popcorn @the ready.
Too right REBELLIOUS, I hope they travel in their droves and do what sevco do best—fight amongst themselves, chant the usual tripe and basically do what sevco are known for….a backward, hillbilly, disgusting klub who are despised throughout the footballing world.
My English pals can’t stand the wangers fc so pretty much a confused new klub!
Even when the financially doped sevco won the league, we could see what was coming—rioting and destroying Glasgow City so why the fk would any European city fancy those hillbilly halfwits rocking up on their shores..!!
Shocking reputation have the hillbilly Fkwits and when draped in that most popular union joke clobber….who in their right mind would welcome that lot..what a klub the wanger footy klub
It is a shame for the decent fans who have spent their hard-earned cash on flights, accommodation & tickets. Ibroke now knows how it feels. They started the 8,000 briefs for us and then went back on their word. They don’t allow pundits in to do their job. I just hope the Huns don’t go marauding as some of them will end up injured or/and in prison. That causes hardship for their loved ones and then the Masonic folk have to step in and sort it out. IMO What goes around comes around and if you are big enough and ugly enough to get involved. Then go for it. They know the Tabloid/Newspapers won’t give it a write-up. Let’s just hope the decent Sevco fans get home safely. The Huns can swim the channel for all I care.
2008 I went for a lecturing job in Manchester Met just a few weeks after Rangers were in the Europa final there. A whole day of interviews and giving talks with all the other candidates and not one missed the chance to mention Rangers, being a Celtic gan curried no favour. United weren’t able to parade their CL trophy because of the mayhem Rangers fans caused. When I finally entered the Head of department’s room for the final interview I knew within seconds I wasn’t getting the job, even though I was most qualified and the only one of the candidates who had actually taught the subject. My Glasgow accent tied me to those effing barbarians in their eyes. I really wanted that job.
Their failed cup final in Manchester…the destruction was incredible.
I’d often travel to Salford for work and was always being told “you’d better not be a rangers fan”
Their support are animals with zero respect for anything or anyone.
Their lockdown march to George Square is just one recent reminder of who they are and collectively what those cowards do.
Filth.