SFA wants to avoid using new banning powers over pyro use

The Scottish FA can now ban clubs from the Scottish Cup if fans throw pyrotechnics - but chief executive Ian Maxwell insists it wants to avoid that outcome.

At the association's annual meeting on Thursday, clubs agreed to an increase in the powers to award sanctions against clubs whose fans continue to disrupt games by their use of flares.

The Scottish FA's powers now mirror those of the Scottish Professional Football League, which oversees the domestic leagues and League Cup.

Punishments could range from fines and ticket allocation restrictions to the ultimate sanction of expulsion from the national cup competition.

"You would absolutely never want to get to that stage and we need to look at the steps that we can take to avoid that," Maxwell told BBC Sport Scotland.

In recent years, European governing body Uefa has closed either all or sections of stadiums where fans have misbehaved.

And, earlier this year, Celtic and Rangers - as well as Motherwell - were charged by the SPFL after fans disrupted both League Cup semi-finals with flares and had 500 tickets removed from their allocation for the final.

"It's been documented in Uefa sanctions that the threat of ticket reductions has an impact - and the SPFL have used that after the League Cup semi-finals - so maybe that's something that we need to consider," Maxwell said.

"The changes we have made to our rules will mean we can now work more with the SPFL to help eradicate that."

Maxwell would not say if this was a step towards strict liability.

Clubs in European competition under Uefa's jurisdiction have been subject to those rules, but Scottish authorities - led by the clubs - have held off on applying those rules domestically.

"Uefa have had strict liability for a long time, which has involved fining clubs, but there's no consequence to the individual on that," Maxwell added.

"It's the club that gets fined, so the supporter doesn't link that back to his or her behaviour. So it's about creating that jeopardy and creating that consequence for the behaviour that we're trying to remove.

"We've got hundreds of thousands of people that come and watch our games on a weekend and we need to make sure that environment is energetic and is noisy. We don't want to quell that, but fundamentally it has to be safe."