ASPS President Rob Hay discusses whether more responsibility for football violence should be laid at the clubs themselves, following disturbing scenes at the latest Old Firm derby.
The ugly spectre of football violence raised its head at the weekend once again. The powder keg Old Firm fixture erupted in disorder and violence, which put the Scottish game back on the map for all the wrong reasons.
A match which should be a showcase fixture descended into a shameful and ugly public spectacle. It also served to raise questions about Police Scotland’s handling of the game, at times from the least-informed of commentators.
For my own part, this is a fixture I have policed many times, at many ranks, over the past two-and-a-half decades. Most of my career has been spent in Glasgow and the West of Scotland, so I am all too familiar with the carnage this game can herald. In addition to the match, have I been on duty in the City Centre and schemes in the hours following an Old Firm derby, and have seen the fallout in terms of violence, often including domestic violence.
Recent reviews of events policing, including football matches, have sought to rebalance the allocation of resources, to rightly ensure that communities that pay for policing via taxation are not disadvantaged by the policing of what, after all, are lucrative private businesses.
It is too early to say whether or not that rebalancing is now under threat, but Glasgow’s Divisional Commander, Chief Superintendent Emma Croft, has stated that a review of the match policing plan will take place. What she has also done publicly is to lay the responsibility for these crimes squarely at the feet of those who caused it – that minority of football fans who appear unable to control their own behaviour.
While senior officers are always careful to highlight that these are a minority of fans, these fans have been a persistent feature of the policing of these matches since before any of the current crop of Glasgow police officers ever pulled on a uniform.
Something is deeply wrong when such pathetic tribal behaviour is handed down from one generation to the next. Any pleas to either side to address their behaviour are simply met with an avalanche of “whataboutery”. The silence from these lucrative private businesses has been deafening and speaks to an abrogation of any responsibility in favour of protecting valuable revenue streams.
Previous attempts to tackle this issue, through a proactive ‘muscular’ policing approach, failed to yield any sustainable change. The now-defunct Offensive Behaviour at Football Act provided a legal tool for a far more interventionist policing approach. This led to a fan backlash, with claims of infringements of Human Rights and politicians jumping on the bandwagon. Ironically, middle-class apologists for thuggery hid behind the accusation that this legislation and policing approach was targeted at working-class people, instead of the reality that the target was, and always has been, criminals.
Ultimately, the legislation was repealed and FOCUS (the Football Co-ordination Unit Scotland, the proactive unit tasked with targeting the worst offenders) was disbanded. And now that those ‘rights’ are fully restored and no longer under threat, how are they enjoyed? Look to Ibrox on Sunday for your answer.
If love for football clubs is what drives such irrational and immature behaviour, the answer can’t lie in the criminal justice system. While the nine arrests on Sunday will likely end up in the 50s or 60s, we all saw hundreds of people involved, as we always do.
By the time cases weave their way through the court system, the likelihood of a penalty commensurate with the outrage normal people felt watching the events unfold on Sunday is low. And the pedestrian pace of justice in Scotland means any deterrent value will be lost.
Make no mistake, most of those you saw storming the pitch will be back at matches in the coming weeks. Modern football is a business, so the only way you can influence fans is to start to hit the clubs in such a way as to influence their balance sheets and team performances. Could imposing penalties such as disqualification from tournaments, docked points, or matches played behind closed doors make a difference?
Once the hand-wringing and opprobrium has abated, we can’t expect different results from the same old tactics. This is not, first and foremost, a policing issue: it’s a football one. The question is whether anyone will rise to the challenge, or whether this sort of behaviour is tacitly tolerated as the price of Scotland’s footballing “traditions”. If nothing changes, you can guarantee we’ll continue to see scenes like we did this weekend.