HALF of respondents to a poll have said that repealing Scotland’s anti-sectarian football legislation was a bad idea.
The results come from a survey of 1000 people conducted for the Wings Over Scotland website.
When 1000 people were asked: “Do you think it was a good or bad idea to abolish the Offensive Behaviour at Football Act”, 50% said it was a bad idea, 34% didn’t know and 16% said it was a good idea. The Act was repealed in April last year after a campaign by Labour MSP James Kelly, who claimed the legislation had failed to tackle sectarianism and unfairly targeted football fans.
The poll also asked if respondents supported the proposals being driven by SNP MSP James Dornan to introduce “strict liability”, which would punish clubs for the actions of their supporters, following a spate of sectarian and other incidents in recent weeks. Results showed that 58% supported the proposals, 20% opposed them and 22% didn’t know.
When the results of the question on the repealing of the Act were broken down, only a quarter of Celtic fans thought its abolition was a good idea. Only 17% of supporters outside Glasgow wanted the legislation abolished.
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