Callum McGregor took fears over yobs directly to Celtic board as SFA chief makes weighty plea to players

Daily Record

a day ago

The SFA chief admits his voice or Neil Doncaster's won't cut through but Premiership stars sharing their fears holds more power
Ian Maxwell has called on the country's top players to help clean up the 'unacceptable' increase in fan misbehaviour across Scottish football.
The SFA chief has revealed Callum McGregor had approached the Celtic board with concerns over missiles being thrown onto the park two years ago.
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And Maxwell reckons more players speaking out directly to the culprits would have a far greater effect than the blazers themselves enforcing the rules.
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Hampden beaks last week updated their regulations to bring them into line with the SPFL and allow them to fine clubs, reduce ticket allocations or even throw them out the Scottish Cup for disorder in the stands.
The past season has seen multiple incidents of pyrotechnics and fireworks, missiles and pitch invasions. The worst case saw former Aberdeen defender Jack MacKenzie struck on the head and injured by a chair thrown by his own fans in the defeat at Dundee United on the last day of the season.
And recalling an incident from 2023, Maxwell said: ' Rangers played Celtic at Hampden and there was a lot of fireworks.
'There was a video online and a guy had a rocket. They are finding ingenious ways to get these things into grounds.
'I spoke to the Celtic board after it and one of them said Callum McGregor had gone to them and said that was the first time the players had actually talked about something coming onto the pitch.
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'At that point you go.. I think we need to use the players.
'The players are a fundamental part of trying to impact on that behaviour because with the best will in the world myself or Neil Doncaster or someone else saying 'gonna not do that' just makes people want to do it.
'But if players are going to supporters and saying 'you are affecting our performance, you are getting in our heads, I'm worried when I'm taking a corner' then that is na positive message.
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'The more we can use that player platform to spread that message and make people aware of the danger then the better.
'It's a player's place of work and it's not right they are taking a corner and there's all sorts raining down beside them.'
Both sides of the Old Firm have been hit by ticket reductions from the SPFL for their next League Cup match at Hampden after their fans continually flouted rules over pyrotechnics last season.
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Motherwell were also hit with a suspended sanction. It comes after the League Cup semi final kick offs were delayed due to smoke billowing round the national stadium.
Celtic were also sweating on an away fan ban ahead of their Champions League blockbuster against Bayern Munich in Germany after being hit with a number of fines by UEFA.
But there were instances of fan disorder across the country and Maxwell said: 'Towards the end of last season we saw more and more and it's unacceptable.
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'We need to eradicate it.
'We approved a rule change at our AGM through the week from a cup competition perspective which brings them more in line with SPFL rules.
'The nuance to this is in a league match the SPFL deal with incidents of crowd behaviour and we deal with on-field stuff. If it's a cup competition it all sits under our jurisdiction.
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'So we will deal with incidents of crowd behaviour and it's important that both governing bodies are dealing with those things exactly the same.'
But Maxwell believes the country's law makers can do more to help crack down on the hooligans too.
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He added: 'If someone is going to go into a stadium and throw a seat what can we do about that? It's a criminal act by an absolute idiot.
'The first thing we need to do is identify individuals, that involves police, stewards inside the stadium, then once we've done that are we taking action as the football authority? But there's also the criminal element and they need to go through that.
'The banning order legislation needs to be changed to have some sort of consequence or people will just continue to do what they do.
Asked if points deductions would be the next step, Maxwell, speaking on BBC Sportsound, added: 'The ticket reduction is the next step. It's a fundament step.
'We will see how that goes. Hopefully that has the impact. If it doesn't and we need to look at something else, we will see what the options are at that point.'