{"id":789588,"date":"2026-07-09T16:57:09","date_gmt":"2026-07-09T16:57:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/789588\/"},"modified":"2026-07-09T16:57:09","modified_gmt":"2026-07-09T16:57:09","slug":"football-banning-orders-strengthened-in-pitch-invasion-and-pyro-crackdown","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/789588\/","title":{"rendered":"Football banning orders strengthened in pitch invasion and pyro crackdown"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Scottish Premiership title decider between Celtic and Hearts in May was marred by a large-scale pitch invasion at the end of the match.<\/p>\n

Celtic apologised to Hearts<\/a> after fans ran onto the pitch at the conclusion of their 3-1 win, which saw them crowned Premiership winners.<\/p>\n

Hearts players left the stadium immediately after the match, later describing the atmosphere as “menacing and threatening”.<\/p>\n

Celtic were later fined \u00a37,500 and given a suspended ticket ban over the incident.<\/p>\n

The Glasgow club, along with fellow Premiership side Motherwell, newly-promoted Championship pair Inverness Caledonian Thistle and Stenhousemuir and League One side Hamilton Academical also received fines or suspended crowd reductions over pitch incursions in May.<\/p>\n

Supporters and police officers were also injured after an Old Firm match<\/a> in Glasgow when fans of both sides clashed on the pitch following a Scottish Cup tie in March.<\/p>\n

Community safety minister Kirsten Oswald said recent high-profile incidents involving pitch invasions and the continued use of pyrotechnics showed the challenges the police, football authorities and clubs had to deal with.<\/p>\n

She added: “The vast majority of football fans attend matches to support their team and are a credit to their clubs.<\/p>\n

“However, a small minority are compromising the fan experience and the safety of players, officials and all in attendance through anti-social and criminal behaviour.<\/p>\n

“Football is our national sport, and we want to make sure it is a safe and enjoyable environment for all and that is what we aim to achieve by introducing legislation.”<\/p>\n

Figures obtained by BBC Scotland News last year<\/a> showed just five FBOs had been issued between August 2024 and February 2025.<\/p>\n

That marked a drop off from 37 during the 2023\/24 season and 59 in 2022\/23.<\/p>\n

An SPFL spokesman said: “The specific targeting of offences such as the use of pyrotechnics, pitch invasions and the throwing of missiles will help improve the safety of players, staff and supporters.<\/p>\n

“While these incidents involve only a small minority of supporters, such behaviour puts everyone at risk and has no place in Scottish football.<\/p>\n

“We will continue to work closely with the Scottish govenrment and other partners as this legislation progresses.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Scottish Premiership title decider between Celtic and Hearts in May was marred by a large-scale pitch invasion…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":789589,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[563],"tags":[64,63,596,85],"class_list":["post-789588","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-football","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-football","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/789588","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=789588"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/789588\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/789589"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=789588"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=789588"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=789588"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}