The Ibrox club has been under pressure from the SPL to tackle such behaviour amongst its supporters and on two previous occasions has been fined more than £20,000 by UEFA for inflammatory chanting.

At Saturday’s game, a minority of fans in an away section of the capacity crowd at the ground were sporadically heard singing The Sash and insulting the Pope. The chants were reported to SPL chiefs by a league representative at the match.

A Northern Constabulary spokesman said: “This type of chanting could be considered a breach of the peace, but if there is a whole stand of people getting involved, Northern Constabulary generally leaves it up to the referee to write it in his report and then the club can either be sanctioned or fined. If it had been individuals they would have been dealt with.”

Rangers’ chief executive Martin Bain is now calling for a meeting with fans’ representatives where he will make it clear the club is prepared to refuse tickets for future away games if that’s what it takes to stop the chants.

Policing of the big match was the Northern Constabulary’s major operation at the weekend and senior officers reported no major incidents.

Chief Inspector Donald Henderson told the Highland News: “We have measures in place to stop coaches en route to the games to check people for any alcohol-related offences. We advertise on the teams’ websites that this is the sort of action we will be taking.

“From carrying out these checks, there were a number of people who were reported in connection with alcohol-related offences such as possession and drunkenness. This is a very successful preventative step in stopping people getting into the ground with alcohol on their person. That has a huge impact on the behaviour within the stadium.”

He added: “Only a handful of people were ejected from the match, mostly because they had ended up in the wrong area.

The Rangers' fans in full voice at Saturday's game. Trevor Martin

“There were a few incidents in the city during the evening that may be related to the football.”

Ch Insp Henderson said elsewhere in the city it was a “normal” weekend with a number of assaults, housebreakings, drug detections, drink driving and domestic incidents.

He added there were a number of curfew checks carried out and six individuals were reported for breach of their bail conditions.

He said: “It was a fairly standard weekend. The number of incidents we had is very similar to last week. I want to reiterate that any kind of violence will not be tolerated.”

c.doughty@highland-news.co.uk

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