SFA might be wise to call off next Rangers vs Celtic match, writes Bill Leckie

THE question now isn’t if anyone can stop Celtic winning the league.

It’s whether the people who run the league can stop them winning it at Ibrox.

Because . . . well, it’s going to be enough of a poisonous atmosphere if Neil Lennon takes them there already confirmed as champions.

But if they go there hunting the result that could clinch eight-in-a row?

Sorry, but it doesn’t bear thinking about.

So forget fixture computers. Forget the luck of the draw. Right now, Neil Doncaster and his cohorts will be praying it’s all done and dusted ASAP, preferably before the split arrives next weekend.

Even then, they might still be wise to suggest they call off the last Old Firm clash of the season, and everyone can just make a donation to charity instead.

Of course, there’s never been a meeting of these two that meant nothing.

Yet after what we witnessed, after the behaviour of way too many players, and the over-reaction of way too many fans, the best place to be whenever the next one takes place will be anywhere else in the universe but Ibrox.

Most especially if your name’s Scott Brown.

If you are Lennon, any of his players or any Hoops fan, you want your leader, your talisman, your protector-in-chief leading you out into that bearpit, of course you do.

If you are either club’s head of security, though? If you are the police match commander?

You want Brown left in the house for the day, no question. From first to last in this astonishing High Noon showdown, Brown goaded Rangers. He intimidated them. He laughed in their faces.

It was Brown who waited his chance to clip the heels of Alfredo Morelos behind the ref’s back, and was more than happy to ride the smack on the jaw for the red card that followed.

It seemed like a pre-emptive move, seeing as the world saw Killie defender Kirk Broadfoot do the same at Ibrox the other week, and Morelos react in exactly the same way.

After James Forrest won the points — and probably the league – at the death, it was Brown who wound up Ryan Kent and landed on the deck again with a hand shoved in his face.

Kent will, undoubtedly, face a retrospective two-game ban for his stupidity.

At time-up, it was Brown who headed towards the baying wedge of away fans, and stuck it to them.

His antics lured Andy Halliday into a nose-to-nose confrontation, and sparked a brawl that will surely lead to more charges and moe suspensions.

Put all of this together and it’s a simple fact of life that Ibrox on the day of that final Old Firm game will be even less of a pleasant place to be if he plays.

Not that I’m blaming Brown for the way anyone behaved here. Not the Rangers players who lost the plot, nor the Celtic fans who once again let the side down by invading the pitch, smashing down hoardings and letting off smoke bombs; no, all of those responsible should know better.

Morelos is a walloper, pure and simple. His manager and his team-mates have defended him time and again over antics that would have had many others hung out to dry.

Yet he rewards this loyalty with yet another needless sending-off.

Kent was a daft boy, rising to the bait when he should have been getting on with trying to save the game and the season.

Halliday let the fan inside him run wild and defend, in his eyes, at least, the honour of the shirt.

As for sub keeper Wes Foderingham and subbed winger Daniel Candeias?

Their conduct during that post-match brawl was appalling, shoving opponents around, scrapping with stewards, snarling and pointing and screeching.

None of that was Brown’s fault. But he’ll still have gone home last night thinking: Job done. Brown also wasn’t alone at the wind-ups. In the wake of that winning goal, Kristoffer Ajer loomed over the grounded Scott Arfield, gloating in his face.

While Mikael Lustig, who came off after that mass brawl with his shirt ripped in two, was at it with Halliday.

Let’s just say that on this day of all days, a few mammies would have been clipping a right few ears, and telling them to behave themselves.

DERBY DUST-UP Watch incredible fan footage of Celtic and Rangers stars' fracas

Because here’s the thing about this rivalry; it never ends, none of it ever goes away.

It festers, it simmers, it seeps through society like a poison.

It will have spewed over on to the streets and into the pubs last night, it will pervade in workplaces today and tomorrow and the next day.

By the time Ibrox comes around, whether or not the result means anything, it will boil and bubble back up to levels that do no one a shred of good.

Yes, there’s forever a car-crash excitement about it all, the endless anticipation of what can possibly happen next.

It was the madness of Morelos, the pandemonium of that opening goal, the way Rangers dug in with ten men to haul it out of the fire with Kent’s brilliant solo strike.

Then the brain-freeze of James Tavernier that sold the shirt, Kent cementing Brown, the goal-line heroics of Ajer to prevent a second equaliser straight from the kick-off.

Right down to the final five seconds, with Rangers launching one last, desperate attack, Ajer went into a 50-50 that could be heard above the din of 60,000. So, yes, it’s exciting.

But it’s horrible too. It’s horrible to hear away fans bawling sectarian filth in an empty stadium at 10.30am.

It’s horrible to hear words like Paedos and Beast being traded across the stands, it’s horrible to see people being hurt by lawless, surging mobs.

It’s horrible to see the reaction of Morelos and some of his team-mates to such a blatant red card.

It’s horrible to see gangs of players showing such a bad example with their behaviour at the end.

If it was a one-off, if it was all miles off character, you’d maybe write it off as blip. It’s not, though. This level of nastiness is becoming more of the norm each time this pair lock horns, and it’s building up to something properly game-changing.

You wonder what that will be before either of them come to their senses.

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