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Celtic Condemns The Scottish Government Over Offensive Behaviour Act Lies

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Celtic has condemned the Scottish Government for misrepresenting its positon on the repeal of the Offensive Behaviour At Football Act after six year old quotes from Peter Lawwell were used to present the impression that Celtic had been in favour of it all along.

In fact, as Celtic pointed out, they have been vocal in opposition to this piece of legislative excreta right from the start.

When the plans for the Bill were announced Celtic broadly welcomed the idea, but upon seeing the proposals in detail our club swiftly realised that it was an affront to civil liberties and switched to wholehearted opposition.

Last week, in a pathetic attempt to defend their indefensible legislation, an SNP spokesperson took Celtic’s initial comments and presented them as our view of the repeal.

Quite how they ever thought they could get away with that is beyond me. But it was noted immediately by the club and by James Kelly MSP, whose private members bill will be put to the parliament shortly. When it is, the OBAF act is gone.

The SNP really has got itself into a desperate mess with this one.

Parliament voted against the Act months ago, but crucially this does not bind the Government to scrap it. They could have, and that would have saved a lot of time and effort, but they decided instead to keep it in place and force Kelly to propose a repeal bill.

It is the height of arrogance, and contempt for the electorate.

The scale of the embarrassment at losing a vote on a repeal bill, and the added political consequences at having been seen to have ignored the express wishes of the Parliament and the people, will be acute and no more than they deserve.

Whether or not this ends the assault on football supporters remains to be seen; the SNP are currently pressing ahead with plans to force the SFA into adopting Strict Liability.

It is unclear how they intend to get this through a parliament where they have no majority, or around UEFA statutes which prevent national governments from interfering in the running of the sport … any club which was sanctioned could go to UEFA and have the sanction over-turned and the SFA would find itself on a collision course with them for levying it in the first place.

This is a story worth keeping an eye on.

Football fans are under scrutiny like never before, as if it were only football fans who indulged in sectarian behaviour, although the cause of the ordinary decent supporter was not helped this weekend when viewers on BT Sport were treated to a near 90 minute bigot-fest at Dingwall.

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