First Minister Nicola Sturgeon is set to hold discussions and feedback to Holyrood before Celtic v Rangers goes ahead at Celtic Park later this month.
Scottish football again finds itself creating controversy after unacceptable scenes involving Rangers supporters in Glasgow over the weekend.
After their Scottish Premiership title win, crowds congregated in breach of pandemic guidance, with damage caused to public property in George Square.
Now Celtic have been drawn into the situation, with Nicola Sturgeon making it clear there are assurances that must be given before the upcoming derby is played.
As quoted by The Glasgow Times, she said: “In terms of future fixtures, I said in my opening remarks, there’s a variety of discussions happening over course of this week, including one between myself and the chief constable later today.
“We will report back on those in due course, certainly before the scheduled Old Firm match on the March 21. The reason why we’ve tried to keep elite sport and football generally going, is not for the benefit of the elite sports people but for the fans.
“Everyone is being deprived of so much right now that the ability to watch a football match and cheer on your team on the television should be something that people should have the ability to do. But a minority can’t be allowed to act irresponsibly.
“I hope we don’t have to spoil that for the majority but we will have to assure ourselves that there will be no repeat of the scenes that we saw at the weekend. That, frankly, is still very much work in progress.”
Given Celtic have done nothing wrong here, it would be unfair if one of our matches didn’t go ahead because of the actions of another group of fans.
However, the Government and Police Scotland will not want a repeat of the scenes we witnessed over the weekend.
We’ll await with interest what the First Minister communicates ahead of the derby. It sounds like she is in no mood to do any favours for Scottish football going forward.
With Celtic now drawn into the debacle, the club will be closely monitoring events too.
In other news, Kyle Joseph is said to have been offered a Celtic contract.
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