Two Rangers supporters banned from every football ground in the UK over Old Firm disorder at Ibrox

Two Rangers supporters have been given five-year football banning orders covering every ground in the United Kingdom after admitting their part in the disorder that surrounded the Scottish Cup quarter-final between Rangers and Celtic at Ibrox in March.

Mackenzie Graham, 21, from Glasgow, was sentenced at Glasgow Sheriff Court on Friday. John Smith, 19, from Peterhead, was dealt with at the same court last month. Both orders bar the men from attending matches anywhere in the UK and from travelling abroad to follow a team.

At a glance

• Mackenzie Graham, 21, sentenced on 21 August to a two-year community payback order, an electronic monitoring order and a five-year football banning order
• John Smith, 19, sentenced on 23 July to a 12-month community payback order, a four-month restriction of liberty order and a five-year banning order
• Graham pled guilty on 24 July to breach of the peace; Smith pled guilty on 30 June to culpable and reckless behaviour
• The disorder surrounded the Scottish Cup quarter-final at Ibrox on 8 March, which Celtic won on penalties
• Police Scotland made 37 arrests in connection with the events around the match
• A ten-year-old child was struck by a coin during the disorder

What the two men did

Graham jumped over a fence, led a group on to the pitch and repeatedly incited others to follow him, according to the case set out in court. Smith threw a bottle towards Celtic supporters in the stand and was apprehended by officers at the ground.

Both were identified from footage of the day, which is now the routine method in Scottish football disorder cases. Neither charge involved a direct assault on an individual, and both men were dealt with by way of community sentences rather than custody, but the banning orders attached to those sentences run for five years.

The match and the return of away fans

The tie on 8 March was the first Old Firm fixture at Ibrox at which a full away allocation had been made available since 2018, with 8,042 tickets going to Celtic supporters. The reinstatement of away allocations had been a long-running negotiation between the two clubs, the police and the Scottish football authorities.

Celtic won the match on penalties. The disorder that framed it produced 37 arrests and, according to Police Scotland, assaults on officers, on supporters, on coaching staff and on players. That a child of ten was hit by a thrown coin has been the detail cited most often since.

What a banning order actually does

A football banning order is a civil order attached to a criminal conviction. It prevents attendance at regulated matches across England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland, and it requires the subject to surrender their passport around specified overseas fixtures so they cannot travel to follow a club or a national side.

Breach is a criminal offence in its own right, punishable by imprisonment. Five years is at the longer end of the range for public order offences that do not involve serious violence, and it is a deliberate signal: the sanction that matters to a committed supporter is exclusion, not a fine.

The prosecutor's case

Procurator Fiscal Fraser Gibson said the two men's behaviour "contributed to mayhem at a major sporting event" and "caused fear and distress amongst football fans". The framing is characteristic of how the Crown Office has approached these cases: the harm identified is not only to those directly hurt but to the ordinary crowd around them.

That argument carries particular weight given the context. Away allocations had only just been restored after seven years, on the understanding that the fixture could be policed safely. Disorder at the first such match makes the case for the next restriction almost automatically.

What happens next

Police Scotland has said investigations into the wider disorder continue, and further cases from the 37 arrests are expected to come before the courts. The more consequential question is what happens to away allocations at future Old Firm fixtures, a decision that rests with the clubs and the police rather than the courts, and one that a single March afternoon has made considerably harder to argue.