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Offensive Behaviour at Football Act cave in.


Glenconner

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Loving the fact btw that the also-rans have spent the last five years telling anyone who'd listen that SNP representatives at Holyrood and Westminster were effectively a form of insidious cult for voting the same way on policy issues: only for every single opposition member of the 2016 Parliament to magically hold the same level of concern over the Act.

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Which is why the Scottish Government had to step in. So, given the fact that the Scottish footballing authorities haven't changed their approach, what would be the likely outcome of repealing the Act?

 

I don't have a problem in principle with the government trying to take action. I have a problem with them doing it in so cack-handedly.

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You shouldn't get a criminal record for shouting something at a football match, regardless of how offensive it is.

This is what SFA/SPFL and Club bans are for.

No, that is what the law is for. Being at a football match does not excuse offensive behaviour.

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I don't have a problem in principle with the government trying to take action. I have a problem with them doing it in so cack-handedly.

 

That didn't answer my question: indeed, there's no indication that the opposition parties have an alternative bill that they wish to propose. So what would be the effect of repealing - rather than amending - the current Act, when the Scottish football authorities remain complete and utter shitebags? Why is that a good decision?

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Loving the fact btw that the also-rans have spent the last five years telling anyone who'd listen that SNP representatives at Holyrood and Westminster were effectively a form of insidious cult for voting the same way on policy issues: only for every single opposition member of the 2016 Parliament to magically hold the same level of concern over the Act.

 

The fact that there's broad agreement right across the political spectrum suggests quite strongly that there's a problem with the law, and a need to make changes. 

 

I'm not even slightly surprised to discover that quite a lot of people have immediately assumed that it's some kind of malicious, conspiratorial attack on the SNP. 

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That didn't answer my question: indeed, there's no indication that the opposition parties have an alternative bill that they wish to propose. So what would be the effect of repealing - rather than amending - the current Act, when the Scottish football authorities remain complete and utter shitebags? Why is that a good decision?

 

Why do they need an alternative bill? What would prevent the police from arresting people chanting sectarian abuse without the football act? They had arrested people for it long before it came into being. In fact, in 2011 (the year before the football act was made law), a student in Stirling was arrested and charged for a Neil Lennon themed Halloween costume, so lets not pretend that the police were hamstrung by a lack of legislation.

.

The fact is that it was an ill-thought through catch-all piece of legislation, dreamt up as a PR gesture by the Scottish government on the back of a touchline scrap between Neil Lennon and Ally McCoist.

Edited by Carl Cort's Hamstring
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The bill is discriminatory against football fans and was driven but political grandstanding by an egomaniac. It is totally unnecessary and was about being seen to act. It is an affront to democracy to criminalise words because you don't like them and the way it was rail tossed through the parliament was disgraceful.

Vanguard Bears salute Green Brigade.

Better Together?

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The fact that there's broad agreement right across the political spectrum suggests quite strongly that there's a problem with the law, and a need to make changes.

 

No, it really doesn't. It simply demonstrates that several opposition parties have been posturing on the issue without putting forward a single credible measure of their own. And then claim that all of their elected representatives will hold and vote the same way on a non-partisan issue, which is the behaviour that they've been screeching about with regard to SNP representatives since 2011.

 

So posturing and hypocrisy it is then. 

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No, it really doesn't. It simply demonstrates that several opposition parties have been posturing on the issue without putting forward a single credible measure of their own. And then claim that all of their elected representatives will hold and vote the same way on a non-partisan issue, which is the behaviour that they've been screeching about with regard to SNP representatives since 2011.

 

So posturing and hypocrisy it is then. 

 

Apart from the ability to arrest young men who are outside their houses on a Saturday, for anything a police officer takes objection to, how does the act tackle sectarianism in a way that was unavailable to the authorities pre-2012?

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Which is why the Scottish Government had to step in. So, given the fact that the Scottish footballing authorities haven't changed their approach, what would be the likely outcome of repealing the Act?

That is not a justification for the Scottish Government to step in. People have a fundamental right to say offensive things. If you don't like the fact that the football authorities and clubs are too cowardly to stop people from doing it at their football matches, don't go to those games.

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No, that is what the law is for. Being at a football match does not excuse offensive behaviour.

Well done on spectacularly missing the point.

It shouldn't be a criminal offence to be offensive ANYWHERE.

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I don't have a problem in principle with the government trying to take action. I have a problem with them doing it in so cack-handedly.

Why do they need an alternative bill? What would prevent the police from arresting people chanting sectarian abuse without the football act?

 

It appears that you now indeed 'have a problem' with the government 'taking action': as opposed to relying upon existing measures. At least to hold a consistent line for more than half an hour at a time please.

 

But of course, we all know why police officers aren't arresting people for sectarian chanting at football matches: it is far beyond the resources of the officials to police a public event involving thousands of people, to ensure general public safety as well as every existing law of the land is upheld. That is why public behaviour at a football match has not always followed the same standards of behaviour that would be deemed acceptable outside the ground. To rely on the police simply enacting breach of the peace legislation - which is an entirely arbitrary and farcical charge in itself - would leave the matter subject to the whims and resources available to the officials at any given match. Needless to say then that the big sash bashes would be off-limits.

 

Edited by vikingTON
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No, it really doesn't. It simply demonstrates that several opposition parties have been posturing on the issue without putting forward a single credible measure of their own. And then claim that all of their elected representatives will hold and vote the same way on a non-partisan issue, which is the behaviour that they've been screeching about with regard to SNP representatives since 2011.

 

So posturing and hypocrisy it is then. 

 

That's quite an impressively mental way of looking at it, mate.  No doubt loads of them are hypocritical posturers, but not everything that happens in the Parliament is a maniacal quest to annoy the Scottish National Party.

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It appears that you now indeed 'have a problem' with the government 'taking action': as opposed to relying upon existing measures. At least to hold a consistent line for more than half an hour at a time please.

 

But of course, we all know why police officers aren't arresting people for sectarian chanting at football matches: it is far beyond the resources of the officials to police a public event involving thousands of people, to ensure general public safety as well as every existing law of the land is upheld. That is why public behaviour at a football match has not always followed the same standards of behaviour that would be deemed acceptable outside the ground. To rely on the police simply enacting breach of the peace legislation - which is an entirely arbitrary and farcical charge in itself - would leave the matter subject to the whims and resources available to the officials at any given match. Needless to say then that the big sash bashes would be off-limits.

 

 

Telling the police to enforce the law, or indeed refusing to police games until the SFA deal with the issue would be taking action. Neither of these things require new laws, just political will.

 

You've given a concise summary of what we have now. I don't understand how you can describe the current act as anything other than arbitrary and farcical. Have you even read it?

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