Leading Hibs group slam Rangers fans’ behaviour as appeal made to club amid ‘line being crossed’

Only a few weeks after Ben Kensell’s Old Firm allocation cut threat, Hibs.net has written a letter and is prepared to send it to the team.A well-known Hibs fan organisation is demanding explanations from the team regarding the alleged actions of Rangers supporters at Easter Road.

The club’s supporters’ forum, Hibs.net, has urged supporters to contact them if they would like to include their name in the letter they plan to send to the team. It follows what they claim to be a violation of the team’s own rules about behaviour from the away section at Easter Road during the Scottish Cup quarterfinal match. They believe that the visiting team’s overall conduct and sectarian singing “crossed a further line,” and they are prepared to express their displeasure to club management.

The action was taken just a few weeks after Ben Kensell, the CEO of Hibs, threatened to reduce the number of tickets available to Rangers and Celtics supporters. Currently, 3,500 seats, or the entire south stand, are reserved for Old Firm supporters on both teams. Hearts, City’s rivals, have already reduced Tynecastle allocations to about 600 for each club bar rival. Kensell and Hibs have already discussed how his team might follow the same path.

“There seems to be a real strength of feeling among our fans that the singing and general behaviour from the Rangers support last night crossed a further line,” an administrator posted on the fans’ site. After talking it over, the administrative team believes we can organise a group reaction that could be given a little more clout by the club than individual emails. We would want to clarify that this email and letter are not being issued on behalf of the website as a whole, but rather exclusively on behalf of those who request to be included.

“We believe that using real names will give this more weight. We recognise that some individuals might not feel comfortable posting things on a public forum, so if you would like to be included, just PM this admin account, and we will add you. If you would like your friends and relatives to be included, please send their names as well. Please let us know if you are a ST holder and would like that information to be included as well. We want to send the letter and email below before Wednesday night’s game; if you could just let us know by Wednesday morning at 11 a.m., we can arrange to send it before then.

“We are writing on behalf of the below signed Hibernian supporters to highlight the behaviour of the Rangers support at the game played on Sunday, March 10, 2024, which was a clear breach of the clubs official policy regarding behaviour within our home stadium as quoted below,” a copy of the letter they intend to send to the club reads.

“This kind of action is not unusual; it follows a decades-old pattern that is repeated. Over time, instead of getting better gradually, things are getting worse. You have the power to change behaviour within our stadium, even while we acknowledge that the club is powerless to address larger societal challenges. Extensive investigations into additional incidences from earlier in the season and from the previous season show that bigotry will be addressed when necessary. Not only is it disrespectful to hear hate songs being chanted clearly from the Away stand, but some Hibs supporters find that it consistently discourages them from going to games when the Rangers are playing. For the fans that do come, it also detracts from their enjoyment on match day.

“We are requesting an explanation from the club as to why Rangers FC supporters exhibit a hesitancy to take action or even to recognise such behaviour. This has included verbally abusing coaches, players, and other club staff in the past; last night, when one of our players was obviously gravely hurt, there was more evidence of this.

We want Hibs to put the past behind them and stop being silent about bigotry against Irish people and sectarianism in Scottish sport. We request that the club uphold the above-mentioned policy and its own zero-tolerance policy against prejudice and sectarianism, which is read aloud prior to each home game. It’s time for change, yet this attitude persists because no club is willing to publicly criticise it.”

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