Away Fans Banned for All Matches Between Scottish Rivals Celtic and Rangers This Season
For the first time in living memory, Scotland’s oldest and fiercest football rivalry will be played out this season without either set of supporters making the short but symbolically loaded journey across Glasgow to the other’s ground. The Scottish Professional Football League confirmed on Friday that there will be no away fans at any Old Firm fixture in the Scottish Premiership or Scottish League Cup for the remainder of the 2026/27 season — a sweeping, unprecedented intervention that will reshape the atmosphere at both Ibrox and Celtic Park for as long as it remains in place.
It’s a decision that arrives with real and immediate consequences. Rangers host Celtic in the quarter-finals of the Premier Sports Cup at Ibrox on September 13, live on Sky Sports, before the sides meet again just a week later in the first Scottish Premiership Old Firm derby of the season at Parkhead on September 20. Both fixtures, along with every other Premiership and League Cup meeting between the clubs this term, will now go ahead with a home support only.
The catalyst was the chaotic scenes that marred the sides’ Scottish Cup quarter-final meeting at Ibrox back in March, a match Celtic won on penalties after the tie finished level. What should have been remembered as a dramatic cup shootout instead became defined by what happened after the final kick: supporters from both clubs came onto the pitch, flares were thrown, and a series of altercations broke out before police and stewards were able to form a barrier to separate the two sets of fans and restore order. In total, 43 arrests have since been made in connection with the disorder.
An independent review into the incident, published in the months that followed, made for genuinely alarming reading. It found that “crushing” and life-threatening violence were narrowly avoided after Rangers supporters stormed the pitch to confront Celtic fans who had themselves spilled onto the field in celebration of the shootout win. That review’s findings have effectively set in motion everything that has followed — first a ruling from the Scottish Football Association last month that both clubs must play their next Scottish Cup meeting behind closed doors as a punishment for the March disorder, and now this far broader, season-long ban on away supporters for every Premiership and League Cup meeting between the sides.
The immediate trigger for Friday’s specific announcement was a breakdown in negotiations over ticket allocations for this month’s League Cup quarter-final. Celtic and Rangers had previously operated under an agreed arrangement guaranteeing away fans five per cent of the stadium capacity for Premiership and League Cup fixtures at either ground. With the Ibrox League Cup tie approaching, Rangers proposed reducing that allocation given the findings of the independent review — a proposal Celtic did not accept. That impasse prompted the SPFL to step in directly, and rather than resolve the dispute fixture by fixture, the governing body opted for a blanket measure covering the rest of the season.
In a joint statement, the SPFL framed the move as a “temporary arrangement” designed to buy time for everyone involved. “After further discussions involving both clubs and the SPFL, agreement has been reached that there will be no away supporters for matches involving Rangers and Celtic in SPFL competitions for the remainder of the 2026/27 season,” the statement read, adding that the pause would allow both clubs, together with the SPFL, Police Scotland and other relevant stakeholders, to properly digest the independent review’s findings, act on its recommendations, and plan future fixtures with adequate lead time rather than facing repeated last-minute ticketing uncertainty.
The statement was also explicit that the ban isn’t necessarily permanent for the rest of the campaign regardless of circumstances, noting the position “will remain subject to review should circumstances materially change during the season.”
It’s difficult to overstate how unusual this arrangement is for a fixture regarded globally as one of the most intense derbies in football. The Old Firm rivalry between Celtic and Rangers carries a weight that extends well beyond the football itself, rooted in more than a century of religious, political and cultural division across Glasgow, and the presence of a vocal away contingent — however small the allocation — has traditionally been part of what gives the occasion its unique, combustible atmosphere. Removing that element entirely, even as a short-term security measure, represents a genuinely significant shift in how the fixture will look and feel this season.
For supporters themselves, the practical effect is stark and immediate: any Rangers fan hoping to attend a league or cup fixture at Celtic Park this season, or any Celtic fan hoping to do the same at Ibrox, will simply be unable to do so as things stand. Thousands of fans who would ordinarily have made the trip across the city several times over the course of a season now find that option closed off entirely, with no clear timeline for when, or if, it might reopen.
The timing adds an extra layer of significance for both sides given where each currently stands. Celtic have endured a difficult start to their own European campaign, having recently blown a four-goal aggregate lead against LASK to crash out of Champions League qualifying, while Rangers under new manager Derek McInnes have been dealing with their own set of challenges — an extensive summer rebuild, some indifferent form in Europe, and now a fresh injury concern surrounding captain Lawrence Shankland. Both clubs will want the football itself to be the story again after a period dominated by off-field disorder and its fallout, and a smoother running of this month’s League Cup quarter-final and the following league derby will go some way toward that, even with away fans absent from both occasions.
For now, both the League Cup quarter-final at Ibrox on September 13 and the Premiership derby at Celtic Park on September 20 will go ahead as home-fans-only affairs, with the SPFL, Police Scotland and both clubs continuing to work through the recommendations of the independent review in the background. Whether the arrangement is lifted, extended, or made permanent will depend on how those conversations progress over the course of the season — but for now, Scottish football’s biggest fixture enters a new season looking and sounding notably different from anything supporters have experienced before.
