Scottish Football Questioned Over Attitude Towards Sectarianism
Nil By Mouth have called for Ministers to ban taxpayer funding for Scottish football until football authorities take steps to tackle sectarianism and address the recommended made by the Advisory Group led by Duncan Morrow in 2015.
In article in the Scottish Herald, it was stated that the SFA and SPFL received over £14 million in public funding between 2011 and 2017.
Dave Scott of anti-sectarian charity Nil By Mouth said: "Ministers should seriously consider withholding public money from the clubs and governing bodies. There is a real opportunity here to use the massive public investment in the game as leverage to force governing bodies and clubs to get their house in order."
"Scottish football should be "held to the same level of standards, accountability and transparency as other publicly funded bodies”.
"In football money talks, that’s why Scottish clubs will comply with ‘strict liability’ [which places more focus on punishing clubs for bad behaviour rather than fans] for lucrative European ties, yet do nothing domestically as they know they won’t be deducted a point or a pound for sectarianism within their grounds by the SPFL or SFA."
Scott believes it is "time for politicians of all parties to hold the SFA and SPFL’s feet to the fire and seriously consider withholding public money from them until they put the recommendations made by Prof Morrow into place."
In response, a Scottish Government spokesman said: “The Scottish Government provides funding via Sportscotland to the Scottish FA for participation, diversity and women and girls’ football and to the SPFL Trust to deliver the Football Fans In Training programme."
An SFA spokesman said: "The investment is used to grow community engagement, support young people, increase levels of physical activity and broaden participation."
An SPFL spokesman added: “The SPFL is fully committed to working towards preventing and, where present, eliminating incidents of unacceptable conduct within our stadia, and has already taken significant steps to address the issue."
For the full article please visit the Scottish Herald:
