Government to meet with SPFL chiefs today after latest Rangers issue – report

The Scottish Government is set to meet with the SPFL in a new summit on Tuesday (21 November) amid the recent Rangers issue regarding pyrotechnics, according to the Scottish Daily Mail.

The newspaper reported on the back page of its print edition on Tuesday that the meeting, which will be hosted by the Football Safety Officers Association, comes after there have been appeals from clubs and authorities for supporters to ditch flares and fireworks following “growing concern” around them.

After the Gers’ game against Dundee on 1 November was halted for 19 minutes following the heavy use of pyrotechnics and several other incidents have also occurred, the Scottish Daily Mail said talks are now taking place between a number of relevant bodies.

Out of control

This is an issue that has become much more of a concern across grounds in Scotland for the authorities in recent years as the use of pyrotechnics has massively increased.

While they can help create an atmosphere and look quite impressive, the volume of flares inside stadiums has become out of control at times.

There is no doubt that they can be extremely dangerous in the wrong hands and there are also concerns for the supporters that may have breathing issues.

It feels as though the Gers incident against Dundee was the one that really broke the camel’s back, with the authorities now even more keen to clamp down on the usage of pyrotechnics.

It won’t be an easy problem to fix, but it must be done in a way whereby it doesn’t massively impact all the fans inside the stadiums because it is a minority of people that are using them and a heavy-handed approach, such as a stop-and-search of everyone, could spoil the match-day experience.

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