Glasgow City Council votes to scrap the Football Act

Glasgow City Council's voted in favour of a repeal of the Football Act.

Published 8th Sep 2016

Glasgow City Council's voted in favour of a repeal of the Football Act. The motion in favour of repeal passed by 37 votes to 24.

Glasgow MSP James Kelly is currently consulting on a private members bill to repeal the Offensive Behaviour and Threatening Communications Act 2012 which has been condemned by supporter’s groups, fans, commentators and legal experts. Labour said that there is a cross-party and non-party consensus that the Football Act should be repealed, which remains the only piece of legislation passed in the Scottish Parliament without any cross-party support. James Kelly MSP said: “The SNP government in Edinburgh should sit up and take notice of Scotland’s biggest city voting to reject the failed Football Act.

“The SNP government in Edinburgh would be better giving Glasgow more funding to stamp out sectarianism in our classrooms, rather than trying to force this failed law on football fans.

"The law has broken down trust between football fans and police whilst doing nothing to tackle sectarianism in Scotland. “The SNP should drop that arrogance now and admit they got it wrong. The SNP are pretending they can tackle sectarianism in ninety minutes on a Saturday when it has existed in Scotland for more than a hundred years. “We need a new approach that starts with scrapping the Football Act.”