Rangers and Celtic put their cases to a Scottish FA appellate tribunal on Monday and now have to wait. Both clubs are appealing an order to play their next home Scottish Cup tie behind closed doors, and both are challenging £100,000 fines on top of that. The tribunal has gone away to deliberate and will say when it is ready.
What the punishment is for
The sanction was handed down in late August for the disorder at the end of last season's Scottish Cup quarter-final at Ibrox, which Celtic won on penalties. Supporters from both clubs got onto the pitch. Fireworks and other missiles were thrown, police officers were injured, and by 25 August there had been 43 arrests.
Neither club is disputing that something went badly wrong. What they are disputing is whether shutting a stand of paying supporters out of a cup tie, and taking £100,000 off each of them, is the right response to it. Both were also warned that a second offence would cost them another home game behind closed doors.
The review that made this unavoidable
An independent review led by Mark Blackbourne, published in July, concluded that the incident came within a very small margin of becoming a violent mass confrontation. That sentence is the reason the penalties landed as hard as they did. The report found failings at both clubs, and it also criticised the Scottish FA for not having taken a tougher line on crowd disorder before this.
That last part is worth sitting with. The governing body now ruling on the appeal has been told, in public, that its own leniency contributed to the situation. Whatever the tribunal decides, it is deciding under that shadow.
What has already changed
In September the clubs agreed that there would be no away supporters at any Old Firm derby in this season's SPFL competitions. That was a separate arrangement, reached without a tribunal, and it tells you how the two sides would rather handle this: quietly, between themselves, without a governing body setting the terms.
The cup sanction is different because it is imposed rather than negotiated, and because it hits the home club's own supporters rather than the visiting ones. If the appeals fail, one of Glasgow's two grounds will stage a Scottish Cup tie in near silence. If they succeed, the Scottish FA will have to explain why the punishment it chose in August did not survive October.
Case facts: Celtic and Rangers are appealing orders to play their next home Scottish Cup ties behind closed doors, plus £100,000 fines each, imposed in late August over disorder at last season's quarter-final at Ibrox. 43 arrests had been made by 25 August. An independent review led by Mark Blackbourne reported in July. Source: BBC Sport Scotland.
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