The investigations which the SFA Police Scotland have launched will hopefully shed some light upon why stewards and police officers were attacked and injured, in some cases hospitalised, by trouble makers before, during and after a showpiece event that was beamed live to millions around the globe.
Their probes should reveal why some hooligans were allowed to physically accost the visitors’ players and coaching staff on the field of play as they celebrated their dramatic penalty shootout victory in the last eight of the national cup competition.
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Their enquiries have to get to the bottom of how hoodlums without tickets were able to gain entry to the Broomloan Stand – which was housing 7,500 of the defending Scottish champions’ fans for the first time in eight years – before kick-off and cause dangerous levels of overcrowding.
But what is far more important than the post-mortem which will be conducted by the governing body and the authorities in the weeks ahead or apportioning blame for the unrest is coming up with new measures to prevent such shameful events ever happening again in this country.
Much has been done in recent seasons to ensure that football stadia are far safer places for spectators. Progress has unquestionably been made in the ongoing battle against the bampots in the stands who are more interested in causing chaos than cheering on the team they purport to love.
Mass pyrotechnic displays at cup semi-finals and finals at Hampden, for example, have been snuffed out entirely. That is a direct result of the admirable actions of the SPFL, who have issued fines and reduced ticket allocations despite the absence of strict liability in Scotland.
Much more, though, still clearly needs to happen to deter those who are determined to cause bother. Politicians are currently examining how the wording of the Police, Public Order and Criminal Justice (Scotland) Act 2006 can be changed and the use of football banning orders improved in this country. That course of action is definitely worth pursuing.
Rangers fans wearing face coverings and balaclavas outside Ibrox on Sunday (Image: Shutterstock)
There will still, however, be a major problem even if that legislation is changed. Namely, identifying the individuals who throw missiles, set off flares, smoke bombs, rockets and strobes, vandalise stadiums, hurl racist abuse at players and chant offensive and sectarian songs. As we witnessed once again at Ibrox on Sunday, many of them hide their faces when they do so.
The number of Rangers fans who donned light blue balaclavas – an article of clothing that has very much become part of ultras culture in modern times – as they battered their way past heavily outnumbered police officers and forced their way onto the playing surface following the Old Firm game was startling.
A video of one cowardly reptile punching a steward to the ground in a completely unprovoked attack before running away to avoid being caught has gone viral on X in the past 24 hours or so. But it will be impossible for anyone studying the sickening footage to determine who the assailant was and charge him with assault due to his unfortunate attire.
Face coverings – and lifting scarves over mouths, donning sunglasses and pulling hoodies down tight are also common practice – embolden neds and encourage them to behave appallingly.
SFA stadium directives explicitly state that non-medical and non-religious clothing which conceals a person’s identity is not allowed to be worn in any area of a ground. There have been calls for the stricter enforcement of the rule in the wake of the cup tie this weekend.
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When dozens, hundreds even, of supporters have balaclavas on it is challenging, nigh on impossible in fact, for club officials, stewards or police officers to do very much about it.
But there is a potential solution to this complex issue – Artificial Intelligence.
No fewer than 14 Premier League clubs down in England now have the latest AI video surveillance software synched to the state-of-the-art CCTV systems which are installed around their grounds. It is no coincidence that illegal pyro use is now virtually non-existent in the top tier of the sport down south.
Peter Houghton of the Football Safety Officers Association explained how the new technology works and just how effective it has been in an interview which appeared in these pages a couple of years ago.
“Clubs down here have fairly sophisticated CCTV systems now which can basically track you from the moment you appear anywhere near the site until the moment you leave it,” he said. “They can follow you just about everywhere.
“There are companies which are adding elements of Artificial Intelligence to CCTV which make it virtually impossible for anyone to make themselves anonymous. The AI is attached as part of the process.
A Celtic fan with his hood up and face covered on the pitch at Ibrox on Sunday (Image: Shutterstock)
“There are one or two issues with it at the ICO (the Information Commissioner’s Office). People are complaining that it breaches GDPR (General Data Protection Regulation) and a lot of other things. It is pretty much in its infancy at the moment.
“But there are certainly companies out there which are saying ‘Okay, if you have got X, Y and Z on your CCTV then we can attach this to it and then we will then know who everybody is and everything else about them’. It is absolutely frightening what they can do.
“When a fan puts on a balaclava it changes his appearance doesn’t it? But the guy has to get into the stadium somehow, either with a ticket or a season card. Identification can now be carried out through those channels, not just by appearance.”
There was an outcry back in 2016 when the SPFL asked Holyrood for the funding they needed to introduce facial recognition technology at turnstiles. The scheme, which would have cost £4m to implement, was eventually shelved.
But would the cost of Artificial Intelligence not be a small price to pay if it meant that ugly flashpoints like those which flared in Glasgow on Sunday were consigned to history and balaclava-wearing neds were drummed out of Scottish football forever?