Executive’s plan to rid football of sectarian bile

GRAHAM SPIERS, Chief Sportswriter January 31 2006

Congratulations were due to Jack McConnell and the Scottish Executive yesterday after the First Minister, on the advice of various police figures, paved the way for a further clampdown on Old Firm bigots who use football as a forum for their bile.

Following last year's summit on sectarianism, in which McConnell consulted with more than 40 organisations across Scotland, the Executive yesterday announced a fresh action-plan which, in regard to football, will further squeeze the life out of those Rangers and Celtic supporters who hijack the game for their political or religious ends.

Any football supporters in Scotland who get a kick out of bawling about the UVF or the IRA should fear the imminent Public Order Bill to be introduced in April.

The bill, with its specific category of banning orders, will allow Rangers and Celtic, and the police, to tighten their grip on those supporters who simply can't help themselves.

The imminent application of banning orders in Scottish football is significant because, for the first time in this country, the law will be able to prevent known trouble-makers from travelling the length and breadth of the country simply to shout their slogans. As the two clubs have both found, it is one thing to ban supporters from Ibrox or Parkhead, but quite another to stop the same fans from depositing their poison in Edinburgh, Dundee or Inverness.

McConnell should be praised for his desire to tackle bigotry. On top of 2003's religious hatred bill in Scotland, the country's legislation is establishing a firmer grip on a previously slippery subject, which was a football supporter's freedom to shout sectarian slogans or songs.

In the past, while most decent-minded supporters were offended by such antics, there wasn't a great deal that could be done about them. Mercifully, not any more.

The Inverness-Rangers game at Caledonian Stadium on Sunday afternoon was a case in point.

Rangers have made significant strides in the past 12 months to try to solve the matchday bigotry problem at Ibrox, including, according to David Murray, the Ibrox chairman, banning or cautioning up to 500 supporters for unacceptable behaviour. Yet what, up until now, could Murray or Rangers do about the ignorant choristers who travel to the club's away games?

On Sunday at Inverness, after each of Rangers' two opening goals, a great swathe of their supporters immediately celebrated in song with some of their mind-numbing chants.

When Rangers or Celtic are in town, why should supporters in Inverness or elsewhere have to put up with this? In recent seasons, fans of opposition teams have resorted to open ridicule or derision when this brigade break into chant, and yet, until the Executive's recent initiatives, the police had been limited in what they could do.

In the past year, McConnell has triggered a sea-change in public attitude towards bigotry. Since 2003, to the shock and anger of the perpetrators, the police and stewards are surveying Old Firm crowds tightly and warning supporters who revel in such offensive material.

After yesterday's initiative, and April's imminent legislation, supporters who spew poison around the country are going to be further hindered in their activities.

There has been a strange anti-reaction in some parts of the football community towards McConnell's sectarianism agenda. It has almost been as if it is too earnest or too uncool a programme to which a nod of approval can be offered.

Well, count me out of the dissenters. Political players such as McConnell and Donald Gorrie deserve praise for the work they have done. If you had had a loved one murdered on account of this blight in Scottish football, you might just agree.

Taken from the Herald