Celtic's Sebastian Tounekti has spoken out about the 'nasty' scenes at Ibrox after the Hoops' 4-2 penalty victory over Rangers.
It was a close tie between the two city rivals that ended up going all the way, and the visitors secured their place in the semi-final of the Scottish Cup after Tomas Cvancara slammed his penalty home.
Celtic fans in the Broomloan ran onto the pitch to celebrate with their players, and although it was clear everyone was enjoying their time, it didn't take long for Gers supporters to jog the length of the pitch in a bid to get to the invading Celts.
Now, Tounekti has told how the players made a dash for the tunnel when they realised what was happening.
He said to RecordSport:
"The game was something special. We won on penalties, and then I noticed that our fans came out to celebrate with us. Then I just saw that the Rangers fans also made their way onto the pitch. After that, the players ran into the dressing room. There were nasty scenes.
I didn’t really have time to think about it. I just ran in, and then you could see in the pictures afterwards that it didn’t look good. It wasn’t good."
Terrible scenes still being investigated
Both Celtic and Rangers are being investigated by the Scottish FA for what happened on that day. Police Scotland has confirmed that several arrests have already been made in relation to the incident and that investigations are still ongoing.
Sadly, it seems that the horrific scenes that occurred while Hoops fans were simply trying to celebrate with their heroes are going to be a major reason as to why we see the allocation of derby games cut. There was a bumper crowd inside Ibrox that day, but it seems like that may soon be, once again, a thing of the past.
It was great to see the stand filled out with green and white, and it brought life to the derby. Now, some people are going to be unable to watch their team play because of policing mistakes that allowed fans on the pitch in the first place.
No one wants to take responsibility, even though the problems are clear. It wasn't right for Celtic fans to go on the pitch in the first place, but security is still a massive concern.
In better news...
In better news, Tounekti also spoke about who he would like to face at the World Cup. He will represent Tunisia at the competition and would love to face in-form Benjamin Nygren.
He said:
"He’s in absolutely tremendous form. He scores goals everywhere. He is always in the right place, and even if he is not seen very much in every match or has so many touches on the ball, he is always there in the right place at the right time.
So I definitely think Sweden should use him in the play-offs. We’ve talked about it a bit. I really hope they make it to the World Cup. It would be great fun to face Sweden."
Sweden failed to qualify for the competition directly, but has another chance as they are in the play-offs due to their position in the UEFA Nations League. They will first have to get past Ukraine before facing either Poland or Albania, but hopefully, Tounekti's dream can come true, and we can see two Celts go head-to-head.