An internal report from Police Scotland has hit out at Steven Gerrard and his players for ‘disgraceful displays of encouragement’ after a 3-0 win over St Mirren at the start of March.
Despite Glasgow being in the midst of Lockdown with Tier 4 legislation thousands of fans turned up at Ibrox long before the 3pm kick off. Milking the occasion Steven Gerrard brought a friend in his car to video his slow-motion arrival to be shared on Social Media.
At the final whistle most of the squad ran to one of the gates at the side of the Main Stand to interact with Covidiots, exchanging scarves and flags and performing for video clips.
From the Dressing Room Gerrard opened the window to encourage further law-breaking. Despite that catalogue of rule breaking no action was taken by the SFA or the SPFL against the Ibrox club.
Yesterday, Police Scotland released in a Freedom of Information (page 7 of 15) request from March 8, two days after the St Mirren match, stating:
On conclusion of the match a small number returned to continue the celebrations, the Rangers Team engaged the crowd through gates and by hanging out of open windows despite assurances from the Club that no such activities would happen. 2 arrests were made during the event for minor disorder.
On conclusion of the event engagement with Police Scotland and Rangers FC continued to encourage the Club to strongly support a stay at home message. Whilst assurances were given this did not materialise. Further engagement did not result in any further statement relating to fan behaviour or responsibilities being issued, despite numerous statements encouraging celebration, including from the Manager.
Both the Manager and players actively engaged from within the stadium with fans gathered in disgraceful displays of encouragement, in solid opposition to the public safety issues arising, to their responsibilities given the privileges under which football operates, and to the commitments they had made around public communications
No Police action was taken over the above events, fresh investigations are now going on into Saturday’s events when 15,000 Ibrox fans caused carnage across the city centre.