Racism and sectarianism in Scottish football

The Scottish football teams have voted against stricter regulations to combat racism and sectarianism. They claim that the current regulations are fine but the Scottish FA point out that there have not been any successful prosecutions in a country where overt sectarianism in football is rife. Currently, there is a get-out clause as the teams say they have taken all reasonable steps to stop sectarianism but they then don't really have to tackle the issue and by rejecting this initiative they are tolerating the chants etc.


http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/football/22853305

Religion has a lot to answer for. It's the cause of so many problems in the world. Where's almighty god when all of the monstrosities and death is going on?

Abbey wrote: The Scottish football teams have voted against stricter regulations to combat racism and sectarianism. They claim that the current regulations are fine but the Scottish FA point out that there have not been any successful prosecutions in a country where overt sectarianism in football is rife. Currently, there is a get-out clause as the teams say they have taken all reasonable steps to stop sectarianism but they then don't really have to tackle the issue and by rejecting this initiative they are tolerating the chants etc. http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/football/22853305

Good luck to them. This has been going on for ages - many moons ago, there was an excellent TV drama called 'Just Another Saturday', which dealt with so-called 'hard men' beating the crap out of one another in Glasgow.

(... the director John Mackenzie began enquiring after the script of Just Another Saturday and managed to get the play into production, only to then find the piece banned after the head of the Glasgow police said that the script would cause "bloodshed on the streets in the making and in the showing". After a year Mackenzie managed to persuade the Head of BBC Television Alasdair Milne to press ahead with the play, although some scenes were eventually filmed in Edinburgh to minimise controversy. - from Wikipedia)

Of course, the situation in NI is even worse (I was there 1971-74 - strange days). Did any of you catch the sectarian undercurrent in 'The Falls', which has just finished on BBC1?

It's a pity the SFA haven't taken any initiative. The situation isn't helped by characters like the Celtic manager Neil Lennon, who is about as 'in your face' a republican as you can get (He's a NI Catholic) - he's received a number of death threats, totally unacceptable, but he does provoke strong reactions.

(I've mentioned Lennon because he's well known - I'm sure there are some equally provocative characters on the Protestant side.)