Given the time it has taken for both clubs to have their say on what happened at Ibrox, there was always going to be added scrutiny when it came. <\/p>\n
Statements from the Glasgow clubs are always dissected word for word, but this time, it would be every syllable. <\/p>\n
Would there be condemnation, finger pointing or even contrition? <\/p>\n
The legal teams at both clubs have been working overtime on these responses – one slip and there is culpability. <\/p>\n
Rangers went first and were strongest in their “unequivocal” condemnation of the disorder. <\/p>\n
The club made it clear that bans will be handed out to those identified and convicted, while emphasising their disgust at graffiti by Celtic supporters mocking the Ibrox disaster that claimed the lives of 66 people. <\/p>\n
Their rivals took a different approach with an in-house interview and statement from interim chairman, Brian Wilson. <\/p>\n
He said their needed to be specifics around condemnation and pushed back on the police and stewarding. <\/p>\n
The Celtic fans coming onto the pitch was “euphoric celebration”, he said, and pointed to this happening before without widespread condemnation. <\/p>\n
The issue of the Green Brigade was discussed but that focused more on the club’s work to bring them back into the fold following a ban. <\/p>\n
It was an overall response that might appease some of the clubs supporters but is unlikely to be viewed as progress by those outside. <\/p>\n
Both clubs have the tricky job of being seen to be acting in the best interests of Scottish football, while keeping a sometimes febrile fanbase satisfied that they are fighting their corner. <\/p>\n
But some will never be happy in that regard. <\/p>\n
In Scottish football it is impossible to reason people out of a position they haven’t been reasoned into. <\/p>\n
Sanctions will come and life will move on, for some.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Given the time it has taken for both clubs to have their say on what happened at Ibrox,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":473992,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[33],"tags":[218,101,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-473991","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-football","tag-football","tag-sports","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/473991","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=473991"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/473991\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/473992"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=473991"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=473991"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=473991"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}