The EPL protects players from racists. In Scotland, we protect the racists.

This weekend, something happened in England which bears thinking about. Specifically, it happened in the Tyne-Wear derby. A player is alleged to have been subjected to racist abuse. The referee was informed. The game stopped. Protocol was followed. Statements were issued. The authorities launched an investigation.

Everyone involved knows what the issue is. More importantly, everyone calls it what it is. There is no hesitation in the language. No attempt to soften it. No effort to wrap it in something more palatable.

The Premier League states plainly that racism has no place in the game. The club condemns it without qualification. The authorities move to act. That is what a functioning system looks like. So now ask yourself a simple question.

What would happen if a Celtic player, or an Irish player, or a Catholic player in Scotland responded in exactly the same way to anti-Irish or anti-Catholic abuse?

What if he approached the referee and reported it? Would the referee stop the game? What if he spoke publicly afterwards and demanded action? Would he get it? You know what? I reckon we all know the answer.

It would not be treated the same way. Not even close.

In the aftermath of the Ibrox riot, what could be more important a discussion than this?

It’s the discussion nobody wants to have, and that’s why I want to look at how the process would go here.

The first difference would come in how people describe the incident. In England, people call what happened racism. Directly. Without ambiguity. Without caveat. In Scotland, they would not frame it like that. They would call it “sectarianism.”

Or maybe the media would use the word “cultural.” They have done that before, back when UEFA crawled all over Rangers for the behaviour of their fans, back when we had our first (and so far only) reckoning with this as a country.

Some words have become shields. Others people use to blur something specific into something vague. They take behaviour that should be named clearly and turn it into something abstract, something shared, something historical.

And once you do that, everything changes.

The second difference would come in how people handle the situation.

In England, the process is immediate. Officials halt the game. They log the incident. The referee follows a clear protocol. Everyone knows the steps, and they take those steps. In Scotland, hesitation would creep in.

People would ask whether the threshold had been met. They would debate interpretation. They would hesitate to escalate, to make a call that might provoke a reaction.

Even when officials take action here, they rarely act with the same clarity or conviction. It feels negotiated rather than automatic. Conditional rather than decisive. And that uncertainty sends its own message.

Then the media would step in, and this is where the divergence becomes even more obvious. In England, the focus remains on the alleged abuse. People support the player. They condemn the behaviour. The system closes ranks around the idea that this is unacceptable. In Scotland, the focus would not stay there.

Instead, it would shift. It would become about the reaction. Was the player right to report it? Was the referee right to stop the game? Did they handle it properly? Has it made things worse? You can already see the headlines. You can already hear the tone.

The player would not just be the victim of abuse. He would become part of the controversy, and that is the crucial difference.

In England, the system moves to protect the player. In Scotland, the system often moves to “protect the game”. From negative headlines. From negative connotations. The narrative would be that this is complicated, that blame is shared, perhaps not by the player, but by “other fans,” and we would slip straight into whataboutery.

But sometimes things are that simple. Sometimes something happens, and it is wrong, and it needs to be addressed clearly and directly.

English football, for all its flaws, has spent years building structures around that principle when it comes to racism. It has defined the problem, named it, and created processes to deal with it quickly and visibly.

Scottish football has never done the same when it comes to anti-Irish or anti-Catholic racism. Instead, it relies on catch-all terms that blur everything together. Terms that spread responsibility so widely that it becomes difficult to pin anything down.

“Both sides.” “Historical issues.” “Cultural context.”

We hear these phrases constantly.

Every time we do, the focus moves further away from the act itself and from the people and clubs responsible for it.

This is not about pretending there are no issues elsewhere in the game. Th ere are. However, not all behaviour is the same, and not all behaviour should be treated as if it exists on equal footing. Racism is one of the most diabolical things in football.

People in Scotland have normalised it.

What happened in the Tyne-Wear derby is not remarkable because it is perfect. Instead, it stands out because it is clear. People backed the player and condemned the behaviour. They followed the process, and punishments will follow.

But what matters most is how people cover it and deal with it. They treat it seriously, as they should, because it is very serious. The problem is that we do not treat it that way. So the question becomes: why does that same clarity not exist here?

The real question, however, is why nobody seems to care. As a result, players who deserve protection will continue to face scrutiny when they speak up instead of receiving support. That is not a system that works properly.

That is a system that avoids the issue.

Until it stops, the gap between how people handle these situations elsewhere and how they handle them here will remain obvious, not just to those inside the game but to anyone paying attention.

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