REPEALING Scotland’s Offensive Behaviour at Football Act sent out the wrong message to fans, an SNP MSP has said.
James Dornan, who represents the Glasgow Cathcart constituency, told the BBC’s Good Morning Scotland programme that lifting the legislation had led to an increased number of incidents.
The comments follow Wednesday’s game between Kilmarnock and Rangers, at which manager Steve Clarke was the target of sectarian abuse.
In his post-match press conference, the Kilmarnock boss suggested fans in Scotland are living “in the dark ages”.
As well as this incident, Sunday also saw sectarian songs directed towards Kris Boyd during Kilmarnock’s match against Celtic at Rugby Park.
A coin was also thrown towards the Kilmarnock striker in the latest of a string of similar incidents this season.
Dornan said last year’s Holyrood vote to scrap the law, by 62 to 60, suggested the issue of unacceptable or sectarian fan behaviour is not being taken seriously by the law.
He explained: “I do think that we sent out the wrong signal when we repealed the Act.”
“I think it’s quite clear that football fans feel more enabled to sing their songs, there’s more invasions of pitches, we’ve seen more coin throwing, we’ve seen all sorts of behaviours seem to increase over the last couple of years.
“The Act was by no means perfect, but I think that by repealing it we sent out a signal that we don’t take this seriously and to be honest, the football authorities and the two big clubs (Celtic and Rangers) do not take it seriously enough as far as I’m concerned.
“It’s a football issue and a society issue and football has to deal with it.”
All of Holyrood’s opposition parties had argued against the legislation, saying it unfairly targeted football fans and failed to actively tackle the problem.
Scottish Labour MSP James Kelly called the Act a “botched attempt” to tackle bigotry and intolerance.
“I think there’s an onus on all of us, politicians and wider society, to tackle this issue,” Kelly said.
“This issue was with us before the Act, it was there during that and it’s still here now. I don’t agree that in some way it’s increased because of the repeal of the Act.”
On Thursday, Rangers released a statement condemning the abuse against Clarke and said they will work towards tackling the problem.
It read: “Rangers Football Club wishes to make it clear unacceptable behaviour will not be tolerated at Ibrox. Everything possible will continue to be done to eradicate this kind of behaviour.”
SFA chief executive Ian Maxwell said: “We have witnessed match officials and players hit by coins, sectarian singing at matches and abusive and threatening behaviour towards match officials, players, managers and coaching staff.
“Football has a responsibility to take action. We must do all that we can under our current rules and engage with clubs to seek to eradicate such behaviour.
“This issue, however, is not one that football can solve on its own.”
A spokeswoman for the Scottish Government said it is “committed to tackling all forms of discrimination” and confirmed it had spoken with the Scottish FA and Rangers on the issue.
She continued: “The vast majority of football supporters are well-behaved, however there is still a problem and we must never lose sight of the collective need across society to have a zero-tolerance approach on offensive behaviour.
“We have discussed this with the Scottish FA and Rangers and will continue to discuss with them, and others, what further action can be taken to address this issue as there continue to be problems with unacceptable conduct in Scottish football, highlighted by a number of recent incidents.
“There needs to be stronger action by football clubs to tackle this vile cancer still plaguing our society and beautiful game.”
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