Sectarian Behaviour

[QOS_MAD_ADMIN]

http://www.queenofthesouth-mad.co.uk...56/index.shtml

[QOS_MAD_ADMIN]

A simple solution to all this nonsense is to ban away fans from all future Old Firm games - simple - but who has the courage to do it.

The SPL,Media,Sponsors and the Old Firm make millions out of it so it will not happen.

[Francis_begbie_HFC]

jeezo theres too much made of this these days ,these chants have been around the old firm for many years ,to me its all banter ,the atmosphere in football grounds will be killed of eventually ,this mollycoddled society we live in these days will kill of fans chanting lol ,to have an atmosphere in football grounds is created by fans goading opposition fans its always been the case iv no prob with it atol likes .

[QOS_MAD_ADMIN]

jeezo theres too much made of this these days ,these chants have been around the old firm for many years ,to me its all banter ,the atmosphere in football grounds will be killed of eventually ,this mollycoddled society we live in these days will kill of fans chanting lol ,to have an atmosphere in football grounds is created by fans goading opposition fans its always been the case iv no prob with it atol likes .

Not quite as simple as that - follow link

http://boards.footymad.net/showthread.php?t=38169547

[Francis_begbie_HFC]

lol yea admin i tend not to post on the scotland mad site likes ,its just a rabble slagging eachother off ,when it should really be about talking about the national team for me .

[Francis_begbie_HFC]

youd be banned from any of the other footiemad sites with the stuff that gets posted on there .

[Cresswell]

A simple solution to all this nonsense is to ban away fans from all future Old Firm games - simple - but who has the courage to do it.

The SPL,Media,Sponsors and the Old Firm make millions out of it so it will not happen.

Violence at football matches has been tolerated for as long as I can remember (which is back into the 1940s). I can recall the police wading into the crowd during games against Rangers or Celtic to make arrests; I recall beer bottles being hurled onto the pitch when decisions went against either of the big two: and, of course, I can remember fans of these two teams urinating into empty beer cans then hurling the full cans onto the pitch or into the crowd if they couldn't throw as far as the pitch. Then there was the sectarianism. If Rangers weren't doing all that well, we fans of Queens were all Fenian *******s and similarly if Celtic weren't doing all that well we were all Orange *******s. I have been at a number of Old Firm games over the years and, believe me, it isn't football banter, it is sheer naked hatred. And what do the clubs and the football establishment do about it? Not a lot is the answer. Oh, they will wring their hands and condemn the actions of "the small minority". "Minority" it might well be but it is not small. Occasionally, when the violence has been too obvious to ignore they will attempt to ban a few fans and then it is back to business as usual. The truth of the matter is that neither Rangers nor Celtic has any intention of doing anything other than pay lip service to condemning the actions of these mindless morons; but please don't ask them actually to do anything. With cctv and allocated seating it would be relatively easy for the clubs to identify the culprits and to take action against them; but will they? Absolutely not: they simply can't afford to. The Scottish Government will argue that it has legislated to solve this problem but, of course, it hasn't solved it. However, a very simple solution is for the Scottish Government to licence football grounds and make crowd behaviour a condition of being granted a licence. In the event of misdemeanour by those in attendance revoke the licence; close the ground. Is that likely to happen? Never in a million years which proves my assertion that there is no real will by either the political establishment or the football establishment to do
anything about this problem.

[CptQueens]

It just seems to go round and round with no real action being taken. Some people may say it is banter and that it is purely the PC police out to ruin football. Yes you can wind them up give some banter such as accusing Clyde fans of stealing your stereo but there is a line which thankfully the majority of us do observe. People do take offensive to these sectarian comments just as much as attacks against an individuals race. It is not acceptable.

[Spikefaethesouth]

Neanderthals the lot of them but just let them get on with it as it only affects themselves. We are fortunately above this tribal dross.

[SgtSouth]

I'm going to bore you all here but to say its just banter is to be honest pathetic.

Legal side: There are a number of songs that have been identified as containing offensive lines
/ additions*. So the offence is only complete when you can evidence that an individual as a specific line from one of the identified songs / chants. So to get around this the fans have stopped singing the offensive lines but continue to sing the rest of the song / chant - the sentiment of which is exactly the same with or without the identified offensive line(s). This gets exactly the same reaction from the opposing support as if they had sung the offensive lines. There are obviously those who continue to sing the songs with the additions / offensive lines. These individuals are well switched on to the fact that most football grounds now have CCTV and the police use digital cameras to record specific grounds so they cover their mouths / faces so it can't be evidenced that they sang. The legislation was well intentioned but poorly put together.

Is there a solution - like has already been mentioned, with allocated seating you could identify a section of a stand (or even a whole stand) as being responsible for singing a song. Do you then ban the whole section? That would be a matter for the clubs and given the precarious state of scottish football financially I don't see that happening.

*when i say additions I mean things similar to Flower of Scotland when the lyrics actually go "...stood against him, Proud Edward's Army..." followed usually by an w***er or b******. - this equally shouldn't be tolerated.

A few months ago I was on an Anti-Sectarianism course. From that I realised that the majority of people singing these songs and expressing these views and opinions (that should not be tolerated) don't actually understand what they are singing. The majority revel in this 'pack mentality' and only understand that these are phrases that shouldn't be said and that they will generate a response in terms of "aye, this will get the wind up them". Ignorance - ultimately that is it; but ignorance is no excuse. You don't go on holiday and break the law then claim that because your not from there you didn't realise that was illegal.

What can clubs realistically do?
-Educate their fans
-Take a firmer stance and employ stewards to actively identify areas / groups in the stands and ban those groups.

What can the SFA do?
-if a referee / match official identifies that home or away fans are singing sectarian songs then there should be a 3 strike rule. Strike 1 - offending team is reprimanded. Strike 2 - offending team is significantly fined and Strike 3 - offending team has to play a home game without any home support (away support could be allowed?). They don't need to be consecutively and they could be in domestic League, or Cup games. Thereafter, if the teams fans continue to sing offensive songs in another match they are docked 20 points. If they continue to sing then they are expelled from the league.

The above may seem really harsh in terms of expelling from the league - but if the majority want it stamped out then I'm sorry I can see no alternative.