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Motherwell FC - Anti-racism Policy |
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The Scottish Foootball Association requires all clubs under its jurisdiction to have an anti-discrimination policy as part of its licencing agreement. Motherwell has an anti-racism policy on its website as well. It says:
This policy is designed to provide clarity to employees, stakeholders, supporters and everyone connected with Motherwell Football Club (“The Club”) on the Club’s attitude to issues of racial harassment and abuse. It is further designed to promote good relations between persons of different ethnic or national groups and to preserve the good name of Motherwell FC.
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 “I don’t think – certainly within the SFA – that there are any grounds for punishing Motherwell Football Club, because there is nothing that they could have done to avoid this incident taking place and when it did, by all accounts it was dealt with very swiftly,” says Andy Mitchell, Head of Communications of the SFA. “How it was dealt with is still open to dispute. I wasn’t there so I can’t really give you too much background, but there are issues like should the perpetrators have been arrested, or ejected from the stadium immediately, so in that respect procedures must be improved in dealing with the individuals concerned and calling them to account.”
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Taking Responsibilities Seriously |
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 “It is the first time that it has happened to me, so I’m very disappointed,” said Jason Scotland at the time. “I was delighted to score to put us in the semi-final, but to play in Scotland and get this kind of abuse is awful.”
Last season racism reared its head again in Scottish football. St Johnstone’s Trinidad and Tobago international, Jason Scotland, was subjected to monkey-chanting by so-called supporters in the Scottish Cup quarter-final between Motherwell and St Johnstone at Motherwell’s Fir Park Stadium on February 28th. “It was a great embarrassment to the club and we took very very strong steps,” says Russell Rodger, General Manager of Motherwell FC. “Racist outbursts do not form part of our community. We put in place a very very strong plan to correct that impression.”f
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The racist abuse of Jason Scotland during the quarter-final match between Motherwell and St Johnstone at Motherwell’s Fir Park Stadium last season sent shock waves through Scottish football. Motherwell acted swiftly to condemn it and demonstrate its anti-racist credentials. Scotland has moved on since the shameful treatment of Mark Walters in the 1988. Walters was subjected to a barrage of monkey-chanting and banana-throwing, especially in the first weeks of his Rangers career. Paul Elliott was also the victim of racist abuse when he played for Celtic around that time. It was one of the reasons that he left Scottish football so soon.
The soul-searching and disgust that marked the treatment Scotland received shows how much progress has been made in less than twenty years, but was this just an isolated incident? It was certainly far more vitriolic twenty years ago, but there is evidence to suggest that the racist abuse of Jason Scotland may not have been the isolated incident some believe it to be. Brian McPhee signed for Dumbarton this June. The veteran striker had been on the receiving end of racism in Scottish football just five years ago when playing for Hamilton Academicals in 2002 McPhee was the victim of racist abuse twice in consecutive weeks. Both perpetrators were prosecuted over it. The first was a seventy-year-old Forfar fan and the other was an intellectually challenged Albion Rovers supporter. “The Rovers fan who racially abused me the next week deserved all he got,” McPhee wrote in an article published by Scotland On Sunday in March. “He was horribly aggressive and hit me with a venomous barrage as I jogged down the tunnel at the end. It just summed up how thick he was that he was standing shoulder to shoulder with a policeman.”
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