3,000 EMPTY SEATS MIGHT JUST BE THE SHOCK TO THE SYSTEM OUR GAME NEEDS

THERE’S a number of things Rangers should feel good about now. Real grounds for optimism after years of trouble and strife.

An unbeaten start to the season. A foot in the group stage of the Europa League after a very decent 0-0 draw in Warsaw. And genuine reasons for thinking that they can lay down a marker against Celtic in the league next Sunday afternoon.

But yesterday manager Steven Gerrard was forced to spend his press conference addressing the subject of sectarian singing. Suddenly, next weekend’s game is no longer about what happens

on the pitch. Focus will now fall on what’s sung off it.

Discriminatory chanting during the recent Europa League qualifying clash between Rangers and St Joseph’s in Glasgow means Gerrard’s side will now take on Legia Warsaw in the second leg with 3,000 empty seats where supporters should be.

You can hardly blame Ibrox directors for feeling seriously hacked off with the FTP karaoke brigade.

Days after the St Joseph’s game, the Rangers board unveiled a commendable new antidiscrimination initiative entitled ‘Everyone, Anyone’, inviting justice secretary Humza Yousaf to see the evidence of their work.

The move came six months after chairman Dave King was forced to issue a ‘sincere apology’ to Steve Clarke.

As then boss of Kilmarnock, the Scotland manager was branded a ‘sad Fenian b ****** ’ by a sizeable contingent of the support. Clarke spoke out after the game to suggest the west of Scotland was living in the ‘Dark Ages’. He wasn’t wrong.

THE default response of supporters of all clubs is to point an accusing finger at the other lot and say: ‘Never mind us, what about them?’

Celtic fans took liberties with the Monkees classic Daydream

Believer to aim bigoted abuse at Aberdeen boss Derek McInnes at Hampden. There was another rendering of the new morons’ anthem by Dons fans against Steven Gerrard at Ibrox.

To be living in 2019 with sectarian chants part of the wallpaper of Scottish football

is nothing short of a national embarrassment.

Minutes after the UEFA punishment was announced yesterday a text arrived from a Rangers-supporting acquaintance. Declaring himself happy with both the UEFA sanction and the club’s response, his was a pleasingly common view last night.

Decent Rangers supporters should be free to take their children to Ibrox without fear of exposing the young to the stench of religious bigotry. And Celtic fans should feel no different.

UEFA’s actions might just bring people to their senses and remove the venal complacency of cokedup ultra groups who think, do and sing what the hell they like.

UEFA’s punishment for Rangers now represents a fascinating test case. All eyes will be trained on how supporters react.

As Holyrood justice secretary, Yousaf has repeatedly threatened legislation to impose Strict Liability on Scottish clubs in the face of resistance to the idea from the SFA and SPFL.

He’s said it so many times now he sounds like the man who cried wolf once too often.

In some cases, Strict Liability is a sledge hammer cracking a nut. There’s no need to punish thousands for one Hibernian idiot taking a run at James Tavernier when the criminal justice system can do the needful.

Yet the case for new penalties to tackle sectarian singing by thousands of fans in Scottish grounds is becoming hard to counter.

The nuts and bolts of how it might work in Scotland are unclear. UEFA committee men can easily shut down a section of Ibrox from the safety of a Nyon office block because they’ll never have to deal with the fall-out.

If the SNP follow through plans to give local councillors the powers to shut down stands for crowd misbehaviour, it’s a different kettle of fish.

Good luck to the Glasgow city fathers seeking re-election after voting to close down a section of Ibrox or Parkhead. They’d need the witness protection programme.

The best solution is for clubs themselves to grab the bull by the horns.

It might not feel like it now. But if UEFA getting tough cleans up the air at Ibrox next weekend and beyond, they could do us all a favour.

The stark evidence staring the SFA and SPFL in the face would be impossible to ignore. They would be duty bound to follow suit.

Before genuine change can come, the biggest clubs and their supporters have to want to take a long hard look in the mirror.

Even if the image staring them back in the face is ugly and unpleasant.