UEFA have fined Ranger's Football Club have been £13,300 for the behaviour of their fans against Villa Real during their Champions League run. This works out to be about 25 pence per fan who attended each match at Ibrox last season.
I hear that UEFA have said it could not tackle sectarianism because it was a particularly Scottish social problem. Well this must be news to the various factions on the Falls and Shankill Roads amongst others in Northern Ireland. Also it must come as shock to Jack McConnell who earlier this week told the Northern Irish Assmembly that sectarianism had no place in a Modern Scotland.
Maybe if we start issuing on the spot fines at 25 pence for sectarian comments that we hear or see getting scrawled in the central belt of Scotland we might overcome it.
3 comments:
'Tis easy to blame Norn Iron for Scotland's problems with sectarianism, but Scotland has its own long and venerable tradition of anti-Catholicism dating back to the 18th century when, by the 1790s, there were more explicitly anti-Catholic societies in Glasgow than there were Catholic inhabitants of the city!
Go back far enough, and Northern Ireland could blame Scotland for its sectarianism....
Thanks for the anonymous contributions. As someone born and raised in Northern Ireland and now resident in Scotland I'm well versed with the problems and history from both sides of the St. George's Channel.
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