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16th March 2013
see: https://scotslawthoughts.wordpress.com/2013/03/22/the-green-brigade-and-strathclyde-police-what-are-the-rules-about-their-corteo/
Top QC says response to Green Brigade march like a ‘police state’
Gerry Braiden
2013
ONE of Scotland’s leading legal figures has condemned a police response to a protest by a group of Celtic fans, claiming the incident smacked of a “police state”.
Brian McConnachie, QC, said the incident, in which 13 supporters were arrested as officers moved to halt an unauthorised march to Celtic Park, could have been resolved earlier in the week by police.
He also cast doubt on the police official version of events, claiming the numbers who arrived on the scene armed and with cameras indicated they were not, as indicated, responding to reports of a large gathering.
Legal representatives of those arrested, most of whom are believed to be members of the Green Brigade, said they expected numerous complaints to be made to the police over the controversial “kettling” tactics and are collating video evidence.
The incident, which saw more than 200 officers, many on horses and with batons drawn, has also drawn criticisms from a number of politicians.
One source said senior police figures have expressed disquiet about how the incident was handled and fear it was a public relations disaster for the force.
Videos of Saturday’s incident on Glasgow’s Gallowgate have been posted on social media sites and come on the back of allegations by lawyers on the treatment of fans from all clubs under Offensive Behaviour at Football legislation.
The Green Brigade, which has been praised and criticised in equal measures by other fans, authorities and Celtic FC, announced mid-week it intended to march to the game against Aberdeen over allegations of mistreatment since the laws were introduced a year ago. But, before setting off, police moved in to halt them on the roads.
Mr McConnachie said: “From what I’ve seen, this is total overkill. I don’t care which team you support. How can this be considered a proportionate response to what seemed to be a peaceful protest. We’ll know pretty soon exactly what went on, given the amount of video footage.
“It’s a fine line between an unlicensed procession and a police state. If the police believed there was going to be an issue they had days to resolve it. They’d an opportunity to discuss it. It’s pretty clear 200 officers with cameras and batons just seemed to be on hand for an unexpected incident.”
He added: “I’ve some degree of sympathy with the police. The SNP Government, the Crown Office and our ‘Green Brigade supporting’ Lord Advocate Mr Mulholland have created a policy, made it such a big issue police have no option but to react in a particular way. We’re also seeing this treated at summary level by sheriffs who are not inclined to disbelieve police.”
Paul Mullen, from solicitors Livingstone Brown, said: “Some clients have asked about the formal procedure for making police complaints and a couple will be seeking recompense for injuries received by themselves and in one case their children as a direct result of the action of police officers.
“In all the circumstances, I very much doubt Strathclyde Police will have heard the last about the events of Saturday.”
A spokesman for Gildeas solicitors, also dealing with football fans facing prosecution, said: “This incident is not just a matter for Celtic fans. It should raise genuine concerns for Rangers fans as well. One wonders how the police will attempt to justify their actions. The footage seen so far makes for some interesting questions.”
On Twitter, Lothians Labour MSP Neil Findlay said: “As predicted in parliament Offensive Behaviour at Football Bill being used to criminalise working class young men – Old Firm fans singled out.”
SNP group leader on Glasgow City Council Graeme Hendry denied the incident was political, but said he was seeking a meeting with the police following complaints by constituents.
In a letter to the head of Strathclyde Police Authority, Mr Hendry said: “I have been contacted by constituents concerned at the behaviour of Strathclyde Police on Saturday. Having seen photos of the kettling technique seemingly employed by the police on Saturday, I would also add my own concern at the appropriateness and proportionality of this technique.
“Given these concerns, I would ask that you launch an investigation into what happened on Saturday and see what lessons can be learned for policing in the future. Additionally, I would hope that should it be accepted the techniques used were not appropriate or proportionate an apology and action will be forthcoming?”
A Strathclyde Police spokeswoman said: “Any complaints will be fully investigated and we will examine all footage.”
Brian Wilson: Let the people sing – yes, even football supporters
The Scotsman
http://www.scotsman.com/the-scotsman/opinion/comment/brian-wilson-let-the-people-sing-yes-even-football-supporters-1-1988631#.UUiVyQW0ca5.twitter
Published on Wednesday 30 November 2011 01:20
The Scottish Government is attacking symptoms rather than root causes with its attempt at a new form of censorship
LET ME open with a voluntary confession for Scotland’s Song Police: I know all the words of Kevin Barry and have been heard to sing them. Indeed, I think the last time was in the drawing room of Hillsborough Castle when the portrait of Lord Brookeborough glaring down at us made the temptation irresistible. “Another martyr for Old Ireland, another murder for the Crown”, and all that.
The reason I know the words is that I am the product of youthful conditioning, just as all of us are. We are brought up with traditions, values and our parents’ beliefs. As we grow older, we sort them out in our adult heads. We determine our own versions of right and wrong. We choose our own songs. I was brought up to detest sectarianism, support republicanism over monarchy, follow Celtic and regard Irish unification as a just cause. I have never seen reason to regret any strand of that DNA. Just to confuse (though there are no contradictions involved), I was not from a Catholic background.
As a rational adult, I quickly worked out there was nothing romantic about violence and grew wary of songs that glorified it, even at a distance in time. The poor sods on the receiving end of flashing bayonets and echoing Thomson guns were no more deserving of their fates than the later victims of Semtex and AK-47s.
For wholly explicable historic reasons, a reality of Scottish life is that large numbers of people identify with one tradition or another that has roots in Ireland. To those who have no such affinities, this may seem unfortunate or anachronistic, particularly because it has a habit of presenting itself through the medium of football. But society rests on mutual tolerance and respect. Nobody’s sense of personal identity, or the expressions that go with it, can be legislated away, and it is a fool’s errand to try. No particular group of people should be singled out for special treatment, to the point of criminalisation, to satisfy a political agenda but in the absence of rational argument.
Yet this is exactly what is now happening through the Offensive Behaviour at Football and Threatening Communications (Scotland) Bill, which the Scottish Government appears determined to press ahead with. If ever there was a counterproductive piece of legislation in the making, this is surely it. Let’s separate some of the arguments. First, the Threatening Communications aspect is non-controversial. If there are gaps in current law that prevent the police from prosecuting the purveyors of death threats, sectarian or racial poison (incidentally, why not political also?) then of course cyberspace should be legislated for in the same way as other channels of communication. The complaint about the remainder of the bill is that there are no such gaps in current law. If people breach the peace or commit acts of violence, they are guilty of offences, whatever the motives. However, Section 74 of the Criminal Justice (Scotland) Act 2003 added the concept of “statutory aggravation for offences motivated by religious prejudice” and requires courts to take account of that factor in sentencing.
Equally, expressions of support for terrorist organisations is dealt with by the Police, Public Order and Criminal Justice (Scotland) Act of 2006. If these acts of “stirring up hatred” occur at football matches, they will result in criminal sentences that include banning orders. So that deals with misguided miscreants who shout “Ooh, ah, up the ’RA” though heaven knows what “RA” they are referring to when Martin McGuinness and the DUP are now the best of pals in a partitioned Ireland.
For good measure, Celtic have given life bans this season alone to 13 individuals who were detected uttering the forbidden words. That is the way it has to be. The tragedy for these individuals is that they have probably no more than the vaguest idea what they are shouting about. But the existing law, plus the action of clubs, makes a red card mandatory.
If there is any justification for new legislation, it must lie in banning something that is not already covered. But what can that be? To muddy the waters, its apologists throw in the Tynecastle assault on Neil Lennon. But the last I heard, assault is illegal in Scotland. On the other hand, the new legislation does not cover the mindset of Scottish juries – which does rather suggest it is aiming at the wrong target and, indeed, the easy one.
Under the new legislation, the potential criminalisation of singing football supporters is to be a matter for the judgment of police officers “having regard to the nature and words of the song”. Apart from placing another unwanted burden on police officers, who will now come under pressure to define what people can and cannot sing, this catch-all formula creates a form of censorship unique to football supporters.
If a song is illegal on grounds of racism or prejudice it should surely be illegal full stop – not only for football supporters. Then Roseanna Cunningham, the minister responsible for this nonsense, piously suggests there is no need for the singing of songs that have nothing to do with football, which would rule out most songs sung at matches around the world. Indeed, this seems a particularly unfortunate line of argument from an individual who presumably bawls out Flower of Scotland at Murrayfield. What does a 700-year-old battle have to do with rugby?
Ms Cunningham seized on figures showing 231 “football-related” offences involving sectarianism in Scotland last year – all of them, presumably, prosecuted under existing legislation! Forty-seven of these occurred at Celtic Park but only 14, according to police, involved the home support. And there were more than a million attendances in that period.
So where is the sense of perspective? My own view is that bigoted, sectarian attitudes are buried deep in Scottish society. They are directed mainly against minorities, principally – as statistics confirm – the Catholic minority. That is a problem worthy of the Scottish Government’s attention.
It is not too late for the Scottish Government to step back from this legislation and accept it is attacking symptoms rather than root causes. Let the people sing – proudly and legally – rather than pushing them into a corner where they feel obliged to defend that basic right, just as I would have done.
• Brian Wilson was the Celtic centenary historian, and author of A Century With Honour.
Spiers on Sport: how the SNP have made policing fans a minefield
Spiers on Sport
Graham Spiers, The Herald
http://www.heraldscotland.com/sport/opinion/spiers-on-sport-how-the-snp-have-made-policing-fans-a-minefield.1363789179
Wednesday 20 March 2013
More and more people are now asking if the Scottish Government is going too far in its attempt to halt “offensive behaviour” at football through incessant policing and harassing of supporters.
Those who appear to be suffering the most are Celtic supporters, though Rangers fans also have some gripes.
This attempt at cleaning up Scottish society has turned into a nightmare, cutting to the very heart of civil liberty.
I deliberately place “offensive behaviour” in inverted commas because the nub of all this is an interpretative minefield regarding fans’ behaviour, wherein clarity is proving near-impossible.
The recent case of the Green Brigade at Celtic, a large and noisy group of supporters, some of whom have Irish republican sympathies, has highlighted once more Scotland’s alleged “police state”.
Various QCs, MSPs and other commentators have expressed concern at the way this group is being monitored by Strathclyde Police, to a point, it is being alleged, of outright harassment.
Just what is going on here? Why has there been this surge in such intense scrutiny of supporters and the way they behave?
The momentum stems from police attempts to implement the Offensive Behaviour at Football Act 2012, a piece of legislation that many – this writer included – had doubts about.
The act seeks to do what it says on the tin: stamp out “offensive behaviour” such as bigoted or sectarian expression.
There has been plenty of that around the Old Firm over the years, so to that end all decent-minded people felt that the law should crack down on bigots.
But what of political chanting at Ibrox or Parkhead? Indeed, how do you define political chanting? For example, should some of the Irish republican songs chanted by Celtic supporters be defined as “political” or “sectarian”?
It is on this blurry point that Dr Stuart Waiton, a sociologist at Abertay University in Dundee, has waded in. Waiton deplores the Offensive Behaviour at Football act and is highly critical, to a point of being derisive, about the treatment of the Green Brigade.
For my part, I wish the “Irish stuff” which can be heard from Rangers and Celtic fans could be binned. More often than not these chants are sung by supporters who are singularly clueless about the history and politics of Ireland.
I also hear both sets of Old Firm supporters singing about something more specific: the IRA. I need not point out who sings for and who sings agin. Again, I’d rather all this was junked.
But the point here is, where does the offence lie, and why? Also, is this stuff political or is it sectarian?
Moreover, no matter how you define it, football club supporters the world over espouse causes or beliefs which go way beyond the game: in Spain, in Portugal, in eastern Europe, in Latin America, as well as here in Scotland.
I’ve said it before, if you were The Global Policeman I’m not sure where you would start, let alone finish, with this. At Barcelona? At Real Madrid? At Rangers and Celtic? At Inter Milan? At the rival Viennese clubs? The list is endless.
I make a clear distinction between this stuff and the more blatant cases of bigotry, racism, anti-semitism and the like. These things we can and should stamp hard on, with no “police-state” argument being raised.
I’ve written often about offensive behaviour at football and have no doubt that bigotry had to be tackled. But I can also see, as Stuart Waiton and others are claiming, that the Scottish police are now in a dire situation as they seek to corral supporters while trying to define right and wrong.
Someone said to me: “A law never works if it cannot be objectively measured.” This absolutely captures the problem of the Offensive Behaviour at Football legislation.
We got a glimpse of the mess the Scottish government was getting into when, in June 2011, Roseanna Cunningham, not having realised how much she had chewed off, had to frantically backtrack and delay the processing of the bill.
That day it took a mere half hour of questions to realise that Alex Salmond and the SNP, wobbling towards their legislation, hadn’t quite appreciated the acuity of supporters who wanted to defend their right to hold political or cultural positions in song and slogan.
The Offensive Behaviour bill was duly delayed. But its final clarity, when put on the statute book last year, was scarcely enhanced.
It has all become quite a dog’s breakfast. Meanwhile, football supporters in Scotland feel like they are under a type of surveillance once associated with life behind the old Iron Curtain.
The Boys of the Green Brigade
19 Comments Alex Massie 21 March 2013 14:27
Celtic v Rangers
The Spectator
http://blogs.spectator.co.uk/alex-massie/2013/03/the-boys-of-the-green-brigade/
Och, now’s the hour and now’s the day for the Historic Announcement of the Historic Date for Scotland’s Historic Referendum on Independence. It’s only taken the SNP the best part of two years to get to this point and, of course, there’s only another 18 months or so to wait for the Historic Day itself.
So today’s parliamentary announcement is hardly the stuff legends are built from. Never mind. But this being a banner day for the SNP and all that, let us pause to recall one of the party’s most dismal – yet telling – failures. I refer, of course, to the Offensive Behaviour at Football and Threatening Communciations Act. This preposterous, ****-eyed, bill has proved just as illiberal and capricious as its critics predicted. If it provides a forecast for life in Caledonia, Free and Braw then god help us all.
Kenny MacAskill, the Justice Secretary, boasts that 83% of prosecutions pursued in relation to the bill have resulted in convictions. It is typical of the man that he should be proud of such a shameful record.
The latest kerfuffle involves a group of Celtic supporters known as The Green Brigade. Their left-wing, Irish Republican political sympathies are not mine but that’s not the point. They have – or should have – speech rights too. Most recently, 13 of their members were arrested for various breach of the peace offences as 80 of the group conducted an “illegal march” to Parkhead (arrests which, incidentally, also support the notion the Offensive Behaviour bill is redundant). I must say that the line between an illegal march and a bunch of lads walking to the fitba’ seems pretty thin and even, perhaps, arbitrary. Doubtless they were, as Tom English suggests, happy to “provoke” the police. Nevertheless, their “kettling” seemed, on the evidence available, a ridiculously over-the-top reaction.
Graham Spiers, writing in the Herald, worries that:
This attempt at cleaning up Scottish society has turned into a nightmare, cutting to the very heart of civil liberty.
Well, who could have predicted that? Only anyone who cared to think about the issue when it was first proposed nearly two years ago. It was clear then and is even clearer now that this thoughtless legislation was abominably ill-conceived, thoroughly illiberal and, most probably, essentially unworkable. It took no soothsaying powers to predict this.
I don’t mean to pick on Spiersy particularly since he was merely one of many voices simpering that Something Must Be Done. Nevertheless, though he now says he always had doubts about the bill, it bears remembering that the record of his testimony before a parliamentary committee tells otherwise. To wit:
In principle, I am in favour of the bill. […] I do not want to live in a country where we have the freedom to stand up, shout and be anti-Semitic, anti-Catholic or racist. If somebody deems that a thought crime and refers to how awful it is to be punished for a thought crime, I say that I think that some thoughts should be criminalised.
Well, some thoughts and sentiments have been criminalised and some of us would prefer to live in a country with more robust protections for freedom of thought, speech and expression. Yes, even when those thoughts are repulsive or neanderthal. You were warned about this at the time but you did not listen. See, for instance, here, here, here, here and here.
Football is a sectarian business. It cannot fail to be. Scottish football supporters, like fans in every other country, are members of rival sects or denominations. Their Hymns of Hate are declarations of tribal loyalty. Outlawing sectarianism at football makes as much sense as outlawing football itself. As a means of “combatting” the alleged problems of sectarianism in society at large, cracking down on the singing of songs inside football grounds is about as worthwhile an endeavour as expecting Kenny Miller to score the goals that would take Scotland to the World Cup Finals. It is a pointless and even counter-productive hope, untethered to reality or reason.
This was obvious when this legislation was being “debated” at Holyrood (I use the term in its loosest possible sense) and it remains obvious today.
We have reached the absurd point at which it is now seriously being proposed that the police compile a list of songs which may be sung and a rival list of anthems the singing of which is liable to leave you open to being prosecuted. The Rangers manager, Ally McCoist, has suggested just such a list of “safe songs” – a notion which reinforces the suspicion that the relationship between the football supporters and the law is now governed by rules comparable to those applied in a sado-masochistic fetish parlour.
Where will it all end? You may recall that the bill was temporarily postponed when it became evident that it might end up criminalising the national anthem. Yet in terms of ”behaviour that a reasonable person would be likely to consider offensive” there actually is little difference, in the context of a football match, between a lusty rendition of Rule Britannia and other more overtly “sectarian” tunes. Indeed, Roseanna Cunningham, the hapless minister lumbered with responsibility for this debacle, even suggested that making the sign of the cross could, in certain circumstances, be considered an offensive provocation sufficiently serious as to warrant police investigation.
All this being the case, is it any wonder the police are arresting football supporters on what can only be considered an arbitrary and capricious basis? And why stop at singing? If vocal declarations of tribal loyalty are to be outlawed then why not criminalise the waving of flags too? If the Sash or the Boys of the Old Brigade are to be considered provocatively offensive then why not criminalise the waving of the Union Flag or the Irish Tricolour?
If that sounds silly then it is no more daft that the idea, suggested by Ms Cunningham, that offensive or threatening tattoos could “fall within the ambit of this legislation”.
As it is football supporters are being tried for notional offences of “religious hatred” when, in fact, all they are guilty of is expressing how much they despise their greatest rivals. In the context of a football match, chanting **** the Pope is anti-Celtic not necessarily anti-Catholic per se. Everyone understands this. The vast majority – by which I mean perhaps more than 90% – of football fans (even Old Firm supporters) are nothing more than Ninety Minute Bigots. And bigotry is an inescapable part of following a football club. An intolerance towards those who hold different opinions or are part of a different group is inherently a large part of being a football supporter.
Which means, in the end, that these poor sods are being convicted for the crime of being football supporters. What a country we now inhabit! A place in which expressing your footballing allegiance can be a criminal offence. A “reasonable” or disinterested person might consider almost any such tribal declaration – regardless of its political or religious content – threatening or offensive. Which, again, makes the suggestion of a list of “safe songs” laughably laughable. What next: the licensing of football songs and supporters? Well, why not?
The whole sorry mess is was as predictable as it is contemptible. And yet will this idiotic, unworkable and loathsome bill be repealed? Fat chance.
Police ‘waging war’ on Scottish football fans
Al Jazeera Mar 2013
Laws aimed at tackling sectarianism in sport need to be shown the red card, say fans of the beautiful game.
Glasgow, United Kingdom – “Harassed”. “Victimised”. “Criminalised”. These are the words used by Scottish football supporters to describe their recent treatment at the hands of police.
On Saturday March 16, more than 200 officers – supported by mounted police and dog teams – took part in an operation to control what they described as an “illegal procession” by supporters of Celtic FC.
As a police helicopter circled overhead, the police lashed out with batons to control a crowd of around 150 fans.
Jeanette Findlay, chair of the Celtic Trust, said that she took a phonecall just after 1:00pm, and rushed to the scene in Glasgow’s Gallowgate, an area of the city where fans often congregate before matches.
“By the time I got there, the Public Order Act had been read and there was a large group of mainly young people being kettled,” she told Al Jazeera.
“I was absolutely shocked at the number of police officers that were there. I have not seen anything like it since the miners’ strike. That is what it reminded me of.”
– Jeanette Findlay, The Celtic Trust
“I was absolutely shocked at the number of police officers that were there. I have not seen anything like that since the miners’ strike. That is what it reminded me of. Turning around 360 degrees, I counted 15 support vehicles.”
The march was organised by the Green Brigade, an ultras group known for their colourful banners and constant singing in the stadium. They made headlines last year with a display of solidarity for Palestinian hunger strikers.
Speaking on condition of anonymity, a member of the Green Brigade told Al Jazeera they planned to walk peacefully up to Celtic Park in a show of solidarity with members who had been banned from matches.
He described the police as “out of control”, saying that officers were “heavy handed” at best and “thuggish” at worst.
“Footage has already surfaced of people as young as 14 being manhandled by officers,” he said. “Complaints have been made regarding a young girl who was struck by a policeman and there have been countless accusations of police misconduct made on [internet] forums by people who were in attendance.”
A police spokeswoman dismissed these allegations as completely inaccurate. She said in a statement:
“Having reviewed the footage, senior officers are entirely satisfied that the officers on the ground dealt with the situation in a professional and proportionate way. Indeed, officers showed great restraint given the level of aggression and abuse they received.”
Some 13 people were arrested on charges which included allegations of breaching the peace, assaulting a police officer and resisting arrest.
Home and away
Last week’s violent confrontation is the latest and most high profile incident in what fans claim is an ongoing campaign of harassment and intimidation against them.
One member of the Green Brigade described how he had been stopped and harassed at matches – both at home and abroad.
“I’ve been threatened with arrest for having the temerity to take a photograph of a police officer, and once for having a scarf above my face [while watching Celtic play away at Aberdeen in freezing temperatures in January].”
He added: “The police film the section where I sit at Celtic Park at every single game, which I believe to be both intrusive and unwarranted.”
The policing of football fans in Scotland has become much more intense since the Offensive Behaviour at Football Act came into force in March 2012 – creating a new criminal offence of “offensive behaviour at regulated football matches”.
It was introduced after a bad tempered Celtic-Rangers match led to a media frenzy and a bout of national navel gazing about sectarianism in the sport.
Strathclyde Police has set up a dedicated unit, known as the Football Co-ordination Unit for Scotland, with specially trained officers and a two-year budget of almost £2 million ($3 million) to enforce the new law.
Supporters claim that the unit’s activities go well beyond policing at football matches, with some alleging that their phones have been tapped and emails intercepted. Members of the Green Brigade say they have been harassed at their homes, at their places of work and at airports as they return from holiday.
Fans have been taken to court over a number of issues, ranging from singing to the displaying of banners and alleged breaches of the peace.
Al Jazeera put these accusations to Strathclyde Police. They say that, so far as they are aware, only one person has been arrested at Glasgow Airport on a football-related matter, and people who have been recognised at football matches are not being routinely stopped for questioning at airports.
The spokeswoman would not be drawn on claims that police were tapping fans’ phones or monitoring emails, saying only that “we do not comment on intelligence matters”.
“Celtic fans are being targeted, harassed, victimised and criminalised – and there is real anger at the way the police are going about this.”
– Michael McMahon, Labour MSP
Labour’s Michael McMahon, a member of the Scottish parliament, met with supporters groups at the Celtic Social Club this week. He said he believes that the legislation is a mess – and its enforcement is actually increasing tension.
“Celtic fans are being targeted, harassed, victimised and criminalised – and there is real anger at the way the police are going about this,” he said.
A game of two halves
It is not just Celtic fans that are angry. The blue half of Glasgow, which follows Rangers, believes that they have also become a target for harassment.
Al Jazeera spoke to Ross, a member of Rangers ultras group, the Union Bears, who did not want us to use his last name.
“Supporters, especially Union Bears, are filmed by police using handheld video cameras during matches – home and away,” he said.
At a recent away game against Annan Athletic, Rangers supporters arriving by train were met by the police at the station. They were only allowed to leave after they had shown ID or given their name and address to officers, and submit to being photographed.
Police say they were acting on intelligence that some fans intended to cause trouble, though fans describe the experience as intimidating.
“On a regular basis, it is common for a police officer to approach a member of our group and greet him by his name, asking him if he still works or lives at such and such.”
– Ross, Union Bears
“On a regular basis, it is common for a police officer to approach a member of our group and greet him by his name, asking him if he still works or lives at such and such,” said Ross of the Bears.
A Scottish government spokesperson told Al Jazeera: “This is an operational matter for the police, who are responsible for security in and around football matches. An 87 percent charge rate and 83 percent conviction rate for people arrested under the legislation shows that it’s working well.”
It is indisputable that Scottish football has provided a focus for religious sectarianism and, specifically, anti-Catholic prejudice.
Whilst Rangers supporters took pride in their Protestant heritage and strong connections to Ulster Unionism, Celtic’s success gave hope to the city’s Irish immigrants.
However, bigotry isn’t just a 90-minute problem that ends when the referee blows the whistle. Until relatively recently, workplace discrimination was endemic in industries including engineering and shipbuilding.
“We’ve said all along that sectarianism goes well beyond football and Facebook,” Dave Scott, campaign director for anti-sectarianism charity Nil by Mouth told Al Jazeera.
“There is a lot of confusion amongst fans, police – and even judges – as to what is, or is not, a breach of the act. We hope the forthcoming evaluation of the act will focus minds on this problem.”
The Scottish Government is set to spend £150,000 ($226,000) to assess the impact of the Offensive Behaviour at Football Act.
In some ways, the confrontation between supporters and the state is a battle for the soul of the game. Modern football is increasingly focused on corporate power and the drive to make money out of fans’ love for the beautiful game.
Glasgow City Councillor George Ryan concluded simply: “A war is being waged against young working class football supporters.”
