Steven Gerrard, the Rangers manager, has questioned the timing of Steve Clarke’s angry response to the latest outbreak of sectarianism in Scottish football.
At Ibrox on Wednesday night, the Kilmarnock manager condemned Rangers supporters for abusing him with discriminatory chanting near the end of his team’s 5-0 defeat in the William Hill Scottish Cup. While Gerrard echoed a Rangers statement in which they said that unacceptable behaviour would not be tolerated, he also pointed out that Clarke had not complained about the conduct of Celtic fans at Rugby Park three days earlier.
In a league match there last Sunday, Kilmarnock’s Kris Boyd was struck by a coin thrown from the away support, who are also accused of calling the former Rangers player a “fat orange bastard”.
“I think it’s happened in the last four or five days to Steve and his players,” said Gerrard. “There was stuff said at Kilmarnock v Celtic as well, but Steve didn’t want to speak about the abuse Boydy got at the weekend. But obviously he’s decided to speak about it last night.
“All I can say is as a club we don’t support any unacceptable behaviour from the terraces. Whatever that may be, whomever it may involve, we don’t support it. We’ve made a statement on it and made that very clear. As a club we want to eradicate that type of stuff from the terraces. We want it out. Whatever kind of abuse it is, we don’t want it. Homophobic, racial, religion, we don’t want it and we don’t support it.”
In his post-match press conference, Clarke also revealed that Rangers had approached him about becoming their manager, a claim that appeared to baffle Gerrard. “If I’m right, I can remember an interview when Steve said there was no truth in that so I’m a bit confused now. Did he get offered or didn’t he?”
Rangers’ statement said they were doing “everything possible” to eradicate unacceptable behaviour at Ibrox. In turn, Kilmarnock said they were “fully behind Steve in condemning sectarianism in all its forms”. The club confirmed they would appeal against the red card controversially issued to goalkeeper Daniel Bachmann early in the replay.
The fallout from an explosive night included a statement from Ian Maxwell, the SFA’s chief executive, who said that he and Neil Doncaster, his counterpart at the Scottish Professional Football League, had already met government and police officials to addressing fan behaviour in recent months.
“The SFA condemns in the strongest possible terms the spate of incidents involving unacceptable conduct,” said Maxwell. “We have witnessed match officials and players hit by coins, sectarian singing at matches and abusive and threatening behaviour towards officials, players, managers and coaching staff. This is completely unacceptable and has no place in football, or Scottish society. Football has a responsibility to take action.