SFA say caging fans would be a return to the dark ages

Natasha Woods finds the authorities likely to opt for heavier fines to deal with unruly behaviour at SPL matches

A SPATE of missile throwing at recent SPL games is set to result in three Scottish clubs being hit with fines later this week rather than anything more draconian after the Scottish Football Association pledged it would not take the game “back into the dark ages”.

The prospect of such unruly behaviour precipitating a return to fencing at Scottish grounds was dismissed by David Taylor, the SFA’s chief executive, who said that such action would only be considered in extreme circumstances.

“We’re not thinking of caging fans in – those were the dark ages for spectators and we’re not contem plating that,” said Taylor, ahead of a meeting of the SFA’s disciplinary committee on Tuesday.

The committee will discuss a number of high profile and explosive games in which objects have been thrown at players and match officials.

Fernando Ricksen was hit on the head by a lighter at Celtic Park during last month’s Old Firm game, officials and players were pelted with objects during a stormy conclusion to the league match between Hearts and Rangers earlier this month and a plastic bottle was thrown at Celtic’s Craig Bellamy during last Sunday’s game at Easter Road.

Celtic, Hearts and Hibernian now all face censure for failing to control their fans, however Taylor suggested financial penalties may be enough to stamp out the trouble without the need to resort to other sanctions.

“We need a measured response, but the message has to get across from both the SFA and from individual clubs that this is just not acceptable. This is serious misbehaviour in football terms, but I don’t think there is any evidence this is a growing trend in our game.”

Willie McDougall, the SFA’s security adviser, does not rule out more serious punishment, but insisted: “I’d suggest fencing would be too draconian a measure because we’ve created some magnificent stadiums in this country and the whole football experience has changed dramatically because of that.

“I don’t think fencing is the answer because I’d suggest such barriers actually create aggravation. Fines could be the way forward, although a further sanction could be to reduce capacity in the trouble areas and that again will result in a loss of income for the clubs involved,” he added.

Fences and catch-netting remain commonplace in many continental countries where missile-throwing is more prevalent, but they have largely disappeared from the British game following the Taylor Report on the Hillsborough disaster of 1989 and the advent of all-seater stadiums.

However, it is still legal to install them at British football grounds, provided they conform to certain safety specifications.

John Williams, an academic who has studied stadium development and fan behaviour post Hillsborough, said he hoped the authorities in Scotland kept things in perspective.

“It is important not to over-react because to contemplate re-erecting fences would send out a very bad message. The view after Hillsborough was that our stadiums had become forbidding and dangerous places because our response to hooliganism was to fence people in.

“To go down that route again and to put up barriers between the pitch and the crowd would suggest that hooliganism is a huge problem and it is not,” said Williams, the head of the Centre for the Sociology of Sport at the University of Leicester.

“We’d have to see much more evidence that missile throwing is so serious and the players are in so much danger that these sorts of measures have to be resorted to,” he added.

Williams suggested the use of CCTV and the punishment of individual offenders might provide sufficient deterrent, but McDougall admitted that the CCTV footage from Easter Road last weekend showed only a sea of gesticulating arms rather than the individual offender. The SFA security expert has sympathy with clubs such as Hibs, who responded to previous problems by installing gates at the front of the east stand steps to prevent trouble, only to see one idiot undo such investment by tossing a bottle.

If the SFA are serious about eradicating the problem then they will probably have to act more firmly than they did earlier this season when Hibs were fined £1,000 after an assistant referee was struck by a pie thrown from the east stand.

McDougall described that penalty as “hefty”, but it may not prove swingeing enough in the current circumstances when both Fernando Ricksen and Hearts’ Paul Hartley were hit by objects thrown by spectators.

To put it in some perspective – of both the dangers and the cost for the club involved – Italian side Cagliari were fined £80,000 and had their ground closed for four matches when referee Mario Facchin was blinded in one eye by a coin.

Taylor, who is a member of the Uefa control and disciplinary body which closed Roma’s Olympic Stadium earlier this season when a referee was injured by a missile, suggested Scottish clubs who were repeat offenders could expect heavier fines.

That could be bad news for all three clubs concerned this time; for Celtic, Hearts and Hibs do not have unblemished records in this area.

Infamously, Celtic were fined £45,000 six years ago during an Old Firm game when Hugh Dallas was wounded by a coin thrown by a Celtic fan.

Taken from the Scotsman