Own your goals

The new SFA and SPFL regulations on “Unacceptable Conduct”will do little to tackle the endemic problems Scottish football faces such as lifethreatening flares, pitch invasions, sectarian singing, effigies, smoke bombs, offensive banners, stadium damage, football violence and the like. These are experiences most clubs never encounter.

They have everything to do with appeasing Michael Matheson, the Justice Secretary who, last June, threatened that Holyrood would intervene if the Scottish football authorities did not put their house in order.

Yes, the regulations are very worthy, as were the Offensive Behaviour Act and the Bowen Report. They have all failed, and will continue to fail, because they make the fans liable and not the club.

The “Unacceptable Conduct” regulations are imposing an unnecessary financial and administrative burden on the clubs. Dunfermline Athletic are a good example. This is a club which will send 20002500 fans to two matches each at, say, Raith Rovers, Falkirk and Hibernian. However, the unpaid staff in the club shop will now have to take the names and addresses of all those buying tickets on nonmatch days. Not surprisingly, Dunfermline were one of just four clubs who submitted a response to these changes.

Obviously, troublemakers will slip through the net by showing up on the day of the match. The answer is simple. Scottish Football needs to come into line with the rest of Uefa, including England and Wales, and bring in strict liability. Uefa has a framework which has worked successfully because it has teeth. If a stand is shut, the next match played behind closed doors, fines are imposed, points are deducted or a club removed