Rangers ultras mock Pope's death with public display as Celtic rivals retaliate

and fans have used the side of a Glasgow building as a proxy battleground in the wake of the Pope's death. The head of the Catholic Church passed away in the early morning of Easter Monday, which has sparked a fresh feud between the fearsome Glasgow rivals.

Members of the Union Bears - a Rangers ultras group - made the first move by defacing a motorwayside building on Glasgow's MacLellan Street to mock the passing of . On a backdrop of the club's blue, white and red colours, the messages read "No Pope of Rome" and "Papa Francesco is Dead".

The Old Firm rivalry runs deeper than football alone, and religious differences are a key factor in the stark divide between fans of the two sides. Rangers have historically been a Protestant club, with Celtic founded by an Irish Catholic.

There was even believed to be a (disputed) unwritten rule about Rangers not signing Catholic players for a large part of the 20th century. The building selected for the Union Bears' brash graffiti message is frequently used for displays from fan groups of both clubs due to its visible location.

And it didn't take long for a rival Celtic fan group to take retaliatory action. Shortly after the anti-Pope message was first spotted, it had been painted over with the colours of the Irish flag and the message: "No flags or drums".

A smaller section of writing read: "Dundee, Hamilton, yer drums are in the Vatican."

The message seemingly refers to an incident last year which saw Celtic fan group The Green Brigade steal a hoard of clothing, drums, flags and banners from the Union Bears before bragging about it on social media. They even wrote a sarcastic sympathy card which read: "To UB, with deepest sympathy, thinking of you all, GB xx".

The Gers' controversial taunts came nearly three years after they were riled up by Celtic fans chanting 'Lizzie's in a box' in the wake of Queen Elizabeth's death.

Celtic are 15 points clear of Rangers with five Scottish Premiership games to go, and cruising towards another league title under Brendan Rodgers. The Hoops are scheduled to go toe-to-toe with their local rivals at Ibrox on May 4, before turning their attention to seeing out the campaign with a Scottish Cup final against Aberdeen later that month.