After Celtic Acted On The Green Brigade, Ibrox Was Forced To Confront Its Own Fans.

You have to laugh at the way the Ibrox club constantly echoes ours, on everything from transfer policy to the way it deals with its supporters. The minute Celtic banned the Green Brigade I knew a show-down between Ibrox and its own ultras was going to come.

Yesterday, they released a statement urging their own fans to behave. Pyro was the main issue, but it wasn’t and it isn’t their only concern. Once Celtic decided to get a grip on some of the bad behaviour in our stands they came to the swift realisation as to how quickly events surrounding their own could start to get away from them. There are plenty of things to worry them.

Not, of course, the bigoted dirge which pours from their stands and which that support cannot seem to leave behind. You have to want to, I guess, and they clearly don’t. Ibrox fans are perfectly happy to be “up to their knees in fenian blood” and aren’t for giving that up.

Their sectarian banner at one of the European games was appalling; it was equally appalling that UEFA did not deal with it. Perhaps they just don’t realise what they were looking at, but those inside the club are well aware of what it was and what it meant. They did nothing.

They have tolerated the vile songs and banner for years. They did nothing.

So what changed? Well, first we did. Our decision to sanction the Green Brigade has shown a willingness at Celtic to clean house.

That puts the spotlight on those clubs which won’t, and Ibrox is the biggest culprit. But more, we are creeping, I think, ever closer to some kind of version of Strict Liability and Ibrox has to know that.

A problem like this, it’s not just going to go away. The task of sorting that crowd of theirs out will take years and their only saving grace was that nobody could countenance fining them or deducting points if Celtic also had issues, thus requiring punishing both clubs.

They know they’ll get far less leeway if they are standing in the dock alone. People who would balk at taking on both clubs might not feel that way about taking on one of them … and the behaviour their fans engage in is absolutely indefensible.

If Strict Liability is coming both their club and ours are going to have to live with a little bit of denial in the stands, denial that any such rules will ever be brought in or implemented.

Celtic, at least, has a lead in this regard because we’ve gotten out in front of the problem and we’re trying to do something about it. Ibrox’s statement virtually apologises to their fans and express regret and sorrow at having to grasp the nettle. They didn’t want to.

But as usual, events at Celtic have forced their hand.

They have now warned their own supporters about their conduct, albeit in a manner that leaves most of us unconvinced that they are serious. Yet they have to be. They know if Strict Liability comes in that their club is on the slipperiest slope there is, and whilst its laughable to think that they will be deducted points or lose prize money under the current system, that’s sort of the point.

If the system is about to change, they are going to find themselves in bother.