Rangers have cancelled all tickets bought by Celtic fans for their table-topping Scottish Women’s Premier League clash on Sunday at Ibrox due to the risk of trouble in the unsegregated supporters’ stands, the club said on Saturday.
Rangers said they had received intelligence that suggested “groups of ‘risk’ supporters in a significant number” had bought tickets for the match. Rangers called an urgent operational meeting between both clubs and Police Scotland, with Police Scotland indicating they would need to deploy a sizeable resource at short notice as opposed to it initially being a police-free fixture,” the club said.
Rangers’ security team decided it would be unsafe to allow these ‘risk’ supporters into the stadium, and with Celtic unwilling to cancel just [‘risk’ supporters’] tickets, the decision to cancel all [Celtic fans’] tickets was taken.”
Groups of fans from both clubs clashed in February last year at the men’s Scottish League Cup final, while in March a Rangers fan was jailed for a year after throwing a bottle at a Celtic physio in the men’s game and injuring him.
Rangers women are top of the league with 56 points from 20 matches after going undefeated in the league this season, while Celtic are four points behind in second.