First minister John Swinney 'open' to criminalising pitch invasions after Celtic fan disorder

Scotland's first minister has told Sky News he is "open" to the question of criminalising pitch invasions at football games following the "unacceptable" behaviour of Celtic fans on Saturday.

Hoops supporters stormed the Celtic Park pitch during stoppage time after their team scored a third goal to lift the Scottish Premiership trophy in a nail-biting title decider against Hearts.

The Glasgow club, which won 3-1, has since issued an apology to Hearts after the Edinburgh side said there had been reports of "serious physical and verbal abuse" aimed at their players and staff, both on the pitch and elsewhere.

The Jambos had to be escorted down the tunnel to safety and quickly left the stadium over what the club described as a "menacing and threatening atmosphere".

Celtic said there was "no justification" for the behaviour and vowed to cooperate with any investigations.

After the club secured its fifth successive and 14th Scottish Premiership title in 15 years, thousands of fans gathered in Glasgow's Trongate to celebrate the win.

However, the festivities led to ugly clashes with Police Scotland.

The force said police "came under sustained attack from missiles and bottles" while dealing with a medical emergency, which resulted in two officers being seriously injured.

Fourteen arrests were made on the day - four at the stadium and 10 in the Trongate area.

First Minister John Swinney condemned the scenes during a visit to Glasgow on Monday.

He told Sky News: "This is happening far too often. It's now becoming part and parcel of the aftermath of some of these major events, and in whatever circumstance, it's not acceptable."

Calls have been made to bring in specific legislation to criminalise fans running onto pitches, as has been the case in England and Wales since 1991.

A consultation around football banning orders concluded in February, ahead of this year's Holyrood election.

The Scottish government had sought views and evidence on the current legislation and whether it needed to be improved and updated to meet current needs.

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In light of the weekend's chaos, Mr Swinney said: "I have to look at that with my ministers and in consultation with parliament to make sure we've got the strongest possible measures in place to ensure that violence in connection with football, whether that's pitch invasions or the disorder that we saw at Trongate, is completely unacceptable and that we take the measures to tackle that."

When questioned about specific legislation to criminalise pitch invasions, he added: "I think that's an area we can look at within the question of football banning orders and all the debate that goes on around about that.

"So, I'm open to looking at those questions, because I think it's unacceptable for a sporting occasion to be concluded in the way that it was concluded on Saturday."

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