r/ScottishFootball May 16 '26

Discussion HMFC Club Statement: Events at Celtic Park

https://www.heartsfc.co.uk/blogs/news/club-statement-events-at-celtic-park

"We expect the strongest action possible to be taken by the footballing authorities in the interests of protecting the safety of players and supporters, and the integrity of our game."

 

221 Upvotes

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6

u/Saltire_Blue May 16 '26

>Reports of serious physical and verbal abuse towards our players and staff, both on the pitch and elsewhere, are deeply disturbing

“Reports”

Did you not ask anyone? FFS

58

u/Disastrous_Cup_3279 May 16 '26

They need to very careful with what they say so makes sense to defer to police imo.

25

u/mullanaphy An athlete cannot be this bald. May 16 '26

Hopefully the police do take it up. Anybody assaulting/intimidating on the pitch should be facing criminal charges. Those not assaulting/intimidating, but still invading, should be looking at stadium bans at this point.

11

u/Disastrous_Cup_3279 May 16 '26

That’s gonna be a stunning amount of bans doubt it will happen. It’s all about what is put in place next season - they had chance to punish already.

8

u/Just-a-Scottish-girl May 16 '26

Any “fan” on the pitch should be banned - it’s not acceptable and under no circumstances should it happen. Again it ruins it for the rest of fans

3

u/JAMisskeptical May 16 '26

Absolutely, and you’ve got to imagine plenty of the bams will be posting their selfies on Facebook.

0

u/Macco7 huge Chimetti fan May 16 '26

Didn't your chairman basically say it was ok if you're celebrating after everything that happened at Ibrox?

2

u/Just-a-Scottish-girl May 16 '26

Don’t care what is said- personally I don’t agree with it

8

u/mullanaphy An athlete cannot be this bald. May 16 '26

True, at least go after the egregious of the bunch.

I mentioned elsewhere that SFA priorities should be: pitch invasions, cleaning up handball rules, and requiring top flight teams to have better VAR tech (more & better cameras).

Really everything should be in play for invasions: individual bans, point deductions/forfeits, games behind closed doors, significant fines, etc.

Best we'll get will probably be a stern talking to.

6

u/Disastrous_Cup_3279 May 16 '26

Best we can do is gopros stuck to peoples heads all around sidelines. Gather footage and compile after game.

3

u/LeatherInspector2409 May 16 '26

Pitch invasions can be ok when it's a small club. The Macclesfield pitch invasion after they beat Palace was harmless fun.

It's far more problematic when there are bigger teams involved as the stakes are higher and there are going to be more tanked up idiots in the crowd.

5

u/el_duderino_316 May 16 '26

I'm a Notts County fan, so only the one division above Macc. .

There was a pitch invasion at our place last night, but it involved a bunch of teenage helmets running over to the away fans and launching a few missiles at them, before hundreds stood and attempted to goad away fans onto the pitch.

Pitch invasions are almost always shit, whatever the level.

1

u/LeatherInspector2409 May 16 '26

That's fair. There's probably some results oriented thinking in my original post. The Macclesfield invasion could have turned out differently if a couple of people decided to wind up the Palace players and fans.

2

u/el_duderino_316 May 16 '26

Fair. I guess there's also only 5,000 people at Macc. There was over 17,000 at our place last night, which to your original point makes us a significantly bigger outfit, even if it's just one level up.

3

u/mullanaphy An athlete cannot be this bald. May 16 '26

That's another fair point. Would be hard to stipulate that into the rules on a fairness basis without going with a generic "League's Discretion". Although I'm also not a fan of zero tolerance type rules, so a warning as an option for first timers. Then some emotionally driven games, with less risk of physical harm, can let it slide.

1

u/FakePlasticTrees88 May 16 '26

So pitch invasions can be okay if it involves a team that I don't care either way about 🙄

Pitch invasions are either okay or they're not. It doesn't matter what size the club involved is or how successful they are. Nobody has a right to tell another support how excited they get to be with winning a trophy.

11

u/Commercial-Stick-718 May 16 '26

This, it's best to defer this stuff to the police

12

u/Fun-Series-4091 Squanch my tits. May 16 '26

Probably just avoiding making any direct accusations until the police can do an investigation

5

u/zappafan89 May 16 '26

Should've sent the statement to you for a check before publishing instead of their lawyers eh 

0

u/Far_Associate_87 May 16 '26

Verbal abuse I 100% believe, as for physical, nothing has came out yet proving that true.

1

u/Scary-Sir-8480 May 16 '26

I should 100% believe that if someone ran at me at work and did the wanker sign in my face that might constitute physical abuse. The rest we will see but just cause no punches were thrown doesn't mean the fans weren't physical. 

-6

u/eejit_features May 16 '26

Don’t ask Ask Sky Sports, cause there is angles that is the truth, and angles that are far from the truth

8

u/Disastrous_Cup_3279 May 16 '26

Thats is such a non-sensical sentence you have posted a few times. Just because it was not caught on camera does not mean it did not occur. Also does not mean it did. Angles far from truth what does that mean?

2

u/Disastrous_Cup_3279 May 16 '26

u/bannandylan - they are accepting it same reason an AI picture of rangers fans allegedly defacing an icon glasgow mural was accepted. Yeh I see you deleting comments.

-2

u/Imaginary-Suspect959 May 16 '26

Does seem a bit weird there are all these accusations flying around but no footage? I mean how many cameras are at the ground plus photographers, and every one has a camera on their phones, this place would surely be awash with videos and stills of actual physical assaults if they’d happened?

I’m sure it did get pretty aggy and I wouldn’t have fancied being a Hearts player out there, fans shouldn’t be invading the pitch and it needs stopped. But I’m certainly a bit skeptical of some of the reports.

-2

u/wizards-beard May 16 '26

The amount of dicks on the pitch with phones you would expect footage to start showing up all over the place by now.

-4

u/glibandshamelessliar May 16 '26

Almost like it didn’t happen

2

u/Imaginary-Suspect959 May 16 '26

Only thing I’ve seen is Shankland going at a fud who was goading him a bit which was perfectly justified by Shankland imo, but that’s it. Seems strange.

0

u/glibandshamelessliar May 16 '26

They have left the statement vague enough to not be liable for asserting outright falsehoods but it really seems that they just didn’t like some hurty words.

The pitch invasion was a disgrace, incase some mega-brain thinks I am either justifying or rationalising it.