I know many Spurs fans who refer to themselves as ‘yiddos‘, they seem to take there honorary ‘Jewish’ status very seriously indeed…and weirdly enough so do the fans of Ajax Amsterdam, which has made them a target of stupid songs about the holocausts often sung by PSV. Though I myself, not being an anti-semite and being a spurs hater, I tend to refer to them as Spuds.

“Clubs can’t stop offensive football chants”

They can if they’re very big and heavy.

I’ll get my coat.

There’s a difference between friendly banter between rival sets of fans (the Spurs lot also had ‘you’re just a shit Barcelona’) and the grotesque bile of, say, Rangers fans (‘could you go a chicken supper Bobby Sands?’).

Football clubs could tackle it if they wanted to with bans, fines etc., but then Ibrox would be empty anyway.

‘The irony here is that football in Britain, at least in its higher reaches, went middle class several decades ago. Season ticket holders at Premier League grounds are more likely to be City Boys or media tarts than the great unwashed.’

Its only ‘ironic’ if you assume working class supporters are more racist than middle-class ones.

Clearly that isn’t the case.

When Viv Richards came to Somerset he dealt with a few racist Yorkshiremen by wandering into the stands and threatening to beat them right across the Dales. Cricket fans soon got the message.

The song about dads washing elephants is most definitely borderline. Whether it’s worse than ”In your Liverpool slums” is a matter for debate. Maybe if it’s seen as OK to rile someone for being from Africa – or Scotland, or ”being Northern” or whatever and not thinking of it being overtly racist, could be seen as progress of a sort. ?? But I’m still thinking about that one. Bananas and monkey chants and ‘N’ words are most definitely out of order.
But songs about ”your mother” have been around for donkey’s years and could be said to be part of the game. I had to laugh the first time I heard of the chant about ”Vieira – Vieira, he comes from Sen-e-gal – his mum’s a ******** ”
But maybe I shouldn’t have laughed.

I like ‘The Billy Boys’ as sung by Rangers (and Linfield) fans. I was in a stand where it was being sung just last saturday – and I’m one of the ”fenians” that are in the words to the song. It’s a good rousing tune and it surely cound not be ”banned”.

This chap at Spiked magazine has written about this subject several times over the years.
This was him just today:
http://www.spiked-online.com/index.php/site/article/10432/

Compared to what Scottish football used to be like, I think we’ve actually made very good progress over the last decade or two. While sectarianism is certainly still there, it doesn’t seem to be nearly as bad as it used to be, and I’d be extremely surprised if that isn’t at least partially down to the various anti-sectarian efforts the clubs have participated in. But yes, certain clubs (cough cough Hun cough) don’t seem to have made quite as much progress as others.

Sectarian Chanting? Never, anyone can join in.

To me, the vast majority of these songs at Ibrox and Parkhead are only really offensive if you know the context in which they are sung. And you understand the context, then, you cannot really be offended by them, can you?

If we were to look at this objectively, I find it rather difficult to believe that people all over Europe are mightily offended by song recording the exploits of the 36th Ulster Rifles at the Somme or even a piece of material worn, apparently once a year, around your shoulders, which was handed down from your father either. To be fair, I think there is a small group of disgruntled people who enjoy be offended on everybody else’s behalf.

I cannot imagine that you could all over Europe not find similar sectarianism between cultures (rather than religion) in say, the Baltic States or within the borders of some parts of Europe. Surely, there must be other culture clashes in places like Spain post the Civil War and the tumultuous history of German unification? Same with other countries cobbled together from Italy’s city States and Belgium’s welded together Country? Perhaps there is none and there are no such tensions, or perhaps there is, but these tensions never come under that type of scrutiny?

The saddest aspect of this for me is that no-one in Scotland finds it remotely odd that UEFFA have shown the slightest bit of interested in this. There are people here who still believe that the ‘Old Firm’ is THE biggest derby game in the World. Yes, that is correct, I am asserting that some people here in Scotland actually think that it is the biggest game in the World. Not one of the biggest, or even in the top hundred, but, believe it or not, there are actually people who think that Rangers vs Celtic is a bigger game than ever other rivalry and not just some embarrassing kick about at the edge of the continent in a backward footballing Country, with two decent sized supported clubs, but with a Sunday league standard of football.

To be fair, I think there is a small group of disgruntled people who enjoy be offended on everybody else’s behalf.

Jim, I can’t believe you said that.

I presume you are referring to the majority of LC commenters?

Pagar @ 9

Surely even you can understand that there is a difference between being offended or angered by injustice or abuse inflicted onto others, even if you are not affected and being offended by the total lack of offence taken by people who do not care about or understand the chants from the ‘away’ end of a football match, and take it onto yourself to be ‘offended’ on their behalf?

@ Jim

Whatever…..

I’ve got £5 your not a Tim.

Tell me I’m wrong……

Then ask me how I know.

Pagar @ 11

What? Are you suggesting that I am a member of the Loyalist hegemony with all the trappings of the Royalist and Unionist bunting? Here I am a totally commited leftie and have voted SNP since god knows how long…

…Okay, keep your fiver. Go on then, what gave it away?

@8 Jim: Surely, there must be other culture clashes in places like Spain…”

Indeed, and very complicated. Under Franco, the Barcelona FC colours were used to symbolise Spanish Republican identity and regional identity.

I’m generally of the opinion that people should be allowed to be offensive without being hassled by the Man, but I’ll say this – it’s true that clubs can’t stop sectarian chants. The police, on the other hand, could wade in and make arrests every time the chants about Fenian blood start up, pour encourager les autres. It would be easy and effective.

That’s no small thing, by the way – if you’re arrested on Saturday afternoon, you’re in the cells all Saturday night and Sunday, until you see the judge on Monday morning. Arrest forty at three games running, and you’d find out pretty quickly how devoted these tubes are to their ninety-minute bigotry.

A note here – I wouldn’t support that tactic, even if there was a desire to impliment it. I’m making this point because, if the cops and politicians are serious about cracking down on this kind of thing rather than bumping their gums and being photographed, that’s how they could do it. It would work, too.

And another note… There’s seems to be a perception among many in Scotland and the UK generally that this stuff is bad and wrong, but ultimately it’s just lads acting like dicks. At the league cup final, I’d say that most of the Rangers fans kept up the sectarian singing for practically the entire game, at full volume.

If that doesn’t bother you much, consider how we would respond if 20,000 people congregated anywhere in the country and belted out a repertoire about being up to their knees in Paki blood; telling black people to “go home” and so forth. I think the coppers would be in with the nightsticks and tear gas in about five seconds flat.

The saddest aspect of this for me is that no-one in Scotland finds it remotely odd that UEFFA have shown the slightest bit of interested in this.

UEFA’s position is that sectarian singing is just as unacceptable as racist chanting. You might think that’s the wrong position to take, but if that’s UEFA’s stance, then the fans are 100% guilty, and not for the first time either.

It shouldn’t surprise anyone that the club have reacted by bitching about how they’re being victimised. It’s the first resort of any guilty person – sure, I was forty miles over the speed limit, but why aren’t you out catching real criminals, like rapists and murderers? Is it because I is (x)?

Here’s how interviews with RFC bigwig Martin Bain should go. “Are the fans guilty of sectarian chanting?” “Yes, but it’s clear there is a campaign against -” “Are the fans guilty?” “They are, but -” and so on. Rangers and their fans know the rules. This is, what, the fifth time their supporters have been busted by UEFA in five years, not just for chanting, but for violence, vandalism, mobbing and rioting? The sixth?

I have plenty of sympathy for arguments from free speech angles and so on. I make them myself, and if that’s the issue I’ll be glad to hear it. That’s not what Rangers are saying, though. The truth though is that Rangers fans knew exactly what the punishment for their chants are, and they did it anyway. They can do that with impunity with the SFA, who would rather lose digits than take even the mildest action, but UEFA’s take on this matter is rather more strident.

The problem as I see it with cases like this is the offended are asserting their right not to be offended should carry more weight than the rights of the offender to free expression. There is no balancing of rights like in civil defamation cases if the criminal law is getting involved in prosecuting acts of expression. What the criminal justice system is explicitly saying is people can’t say things that we do not like. However, what is offensive can’t be an objective thing as it is entirely in the ear of the hearer. Moreover, these chants seem to be more overtly political than religious. What would we think if the Conservatives demanded action against those chanting anti-Tory chants at left wing marches? Criminalising acts of political expression does not seem a particularly tolerant path for a liberal society to tread.

If these or any other chants are more religious than political, why should the religious enjoy this special favour before the law? Seems quite Wahhabist virtue police to me. Why should religious chants or songs be considered illegal but not derogatory songs referring to opposition fans personal hygiene or geographical location? Why is it that the religious always demand extra rights? Why should we care whether the religious are offended? Considering the long history of internal European conflict, would not the very act of singing national anthems before games be almost certain to offend someone? I think on balance that acts of discrimination should be illegal. However, expression should be totally free.

In the UEFA European context does article 10 of the ECoHR not allow for freedom of expression or is that just expressions where the virtue police approve the expressions?

@Richard W
Er, yes, free speech, you may or may not noticed that UEFA is essentially a privately-run body, and as such can place whatever rules and restrictions on speech in regard to matches under its control that it feels like. In much the same way as sky news can refuse air-time to members of the SWP or points of view it disagrees with as much as it likes. Given that most Football associations like football watching to be a family pastime, them desiring the proceedings to be child-friendly and free of abuse should not really be all that surprising, they do want as many fan’s money as possible after all.
UEFA does not equal The State. That is why clubs, whom are under UEFA’s remit, and not fans get punished by the transgressions by fans (although the home supporter match ban here is arguable on that point).

This is not the thought police launched from the Political Correctness Palace clamping down on free speech causing offence.

The problem as I see it with cases like this is the offended are asserting their right not to be offended should carry more weight than the rights of the offender to free expression.

All of this is fine if you’re talking about coppers arresting people for racist abuse etc. It falls over badly when it’s used about the cases of Rangers or teams playing against Tottenham. Baddiel is calling for fans to police themselves; UEFA can impose whatever conditions it likes upon teams that want to participate in its competitions.

Rangers, for instance, are free to tell UEFA where to stick their fines, if they like – they just won’t be allowed back into UEFA competitions if they do. They’re also free to join up with Lazio and Zagreb in their own shouty little tournament if they want.

And it should be noted that the issue isn’t people being offended. UEFA don’t care whether there are any members of the ethnic/religious group present to be offended – PSV Eindhoven (Dutch) won’t have too many Catholic fans, I imagine. UEFA rules state that clubs whose fans indulge in racist chanting will be punished, regardless of public complaints.

In the UEFA European context does article 10 of the ECoHR not allow for freedom of expression or is that just expressions where the virtue police approve the expressions?

UEFA aren’t a state government, so ECHR doesn’t apply. Even if it did, I’d like to see the club’s defence. You have a perfect right to state all kinds of hateful opinions – you can proclaim that ethnic minorities are subhuman, if you like. If you scream that stuff in the street, you’re likely placing bystanders in a state of fear and alarm, which is a public order offence. For obvious reasons, there’s a limit to what falls within ECHR’s protections – aggressive threats, for instance, usually don’t.

Cylux beat me to it, I see.

Woot!

Well yes UEFA are a privately run organisation and can make up their own rules. However, I could could see how that notion of private organisations asserting that right in other contexts could run into difficulties. Seems a bit strange that a trans-European governing body does not accept the principles of the trans-European convention of rights on the same continent. A bit like the NFL not accepting the US Bill of Rights.

UEFA can do what they like within their competitions. However, criminalising expressions whether political or anti-religious is another matter. Behaviour that places others in a state of alarm is a criminal offence. Although, I do not think anyone is saying fans should be arrested for the act of chanting. However, they should be arrested for the contents of the chant. That is criminalsation of expression rather than behaviour. Who decides what is offensive and on what basis? The police obviously but who appointed them as virtue police? Opposition fans? Why would it be offensive to chant about Rooney’s religion but not his physical appearance?

I personally do not care one way or another about this issue. However, I just loathe censorship. Moreover, I can think of zero reason why religious belief should get any special protection from the law.

@ Jim

Go on then, what gave it away?

Many protestants in Glasgow believe they can spot a Roman Catholic by their dress sense.

All browns greens and pastels is the theory.

Others think they can do it by skull shape.

Sloping foreheads.

When you move away from Glasgow and look at the religious divide from the outside it seems tremendously……..primitive.

It makes no more sense than the two African tribes who have been fighting each other since the dawn of time but nobody can remember why.

Seems a bit strange that a trans-European governing body does not accept the principles of the trans-European convention of rights on the same continent.

I really don’t see why. If a bunch of customers walked into a Toyota showroom in Le Havre or Dusseldorf and started aggressively singing songs about the Holocaust, I assure you that the store manager wouldn’t consult the European Court before he flung them out. UEFA take the same stance.

UEFA can do what they like within their competitions. However, criminalising expressions whether political or anti-religious is another matter.

This is like saying “Of course, people who drive drunk should be prosecuted. However, I do not think that they should be fed to the Minotaur”.

That is criminalsation of expression rather than behaviour.

You need to rethink this point here. If you are repeatedly and insistently calling somebody a black bastard to their face, for instance, it doesn’t much matter whether you’re talking jovially or shouting at the top of your voice. I think there’s a very good case for criminalising that kind of expression.

I can think of zero reason why religious belief should get any special protection from the law.

That’s because you’re talking in the abstract, rather than imagining the practical application. Imagine fifty thousand people congregating anywhere outside of a football ground to angrily sing songs about gassing Jews or murdering Zoroastrians or whatever.

I’m not suggesting that all fifty thousand should be arrested, but I am saying that this is a significantly more serious issue than just a small group of thin-skinned minorities taking offence.

Pagar @ 22

But Pagar, you cannot see what I am wearing or the slope of my hear, either. All you have to go on is what I write here.

I’m amazed high ranking EUFA officials fret about what goes in football stadia – surely Blatter, et al’s, attention is being unnecessarily diverted from milking as much money as possible out from the game?
http://www.soccerway.com/news/2010/November/29/panorama-names-corrupt-fifa-officials/

But Pagar, you cannot see what I am wearing or the slope of my hear, either. All you have to go on is what I write here.

I know that.

But you’ve got the funny hand writing…………..

So these UEFA bods know who Billy Fullerton and the Bridgeton Billy Boys were do they?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Billy_Boys

They’ve obviously been doing their homework. Do they analyse songs from all the far flung regions of their federation in the same way? From the Pyrenees to the Russian Steppes?
They’d need to know their Serbo-Croatian too.
Maybe they just pay people to inform on their own countrymen when they hear something.

Flying rodent @ 15

UEFA’s position is that sectarian singing is just as unacceptable as racist chanting. You might think that’s the wrong position to take, but if that’s UEFA’s stance, then the fans are 100% guilty, and not for the first time either.

The point being that you get abusive songs at every ground in Europe. Eastern Europe, Spain and Italy all have pretty vile chants too. As of course do Germans and Dutch. The problem is not whether or not sectarian chanting is ‘good’ or ‘bad’, but are we aware of the extent of sectarian chants occurring right throughout the continent. Are there examples of a club’s chanting fans being banned? Does this set a precedent?

No-one is going to ban the Spanish clubs under any circumstances. Christ they could sing about holocaust being a ‘good’ start and it would be ignored. We see what I would describe as ‘Neo-Nazi symbolism’ on flags and banners all over Europe, but especially in Italy and to a lesser extent Spain, but these clubs are rarely singled out for bans for the behaviour of their supporters. Rangers are a minor club who are not exactly a giant among equals in the European sphere, yet it appears that the ‘gnomes’ of Zurich have heard something unique in these songs, that does not arise among the ‘Ultras’ right across Europe.

Now it could be that UEFFA have every game on tape and scrutinise every game, have all the chants and folk songs translated from the local dialect and then have the cultural references looked up and explored before finally past ‘safe’ for a TV audience or it could just be that Dutch people are especially sensitive to terms like ‘fienian blood’ and understand the nuances behind whether or not Bobby Sands would indeed enjoy a chicken supper. I suppose that it is possible that the former MP is a national hero to the good people of Holland and having his name bandied around is nothing short of a disgrace to them. It could be that they find songs that retell the exploits of a Dutch Prince’s exploits over the river Boyne as desecration.

Personally I doubt it. I think it is safe to assume that a few people have took it upon themselves to be offended on everyone else’s behalf.

@27 & 28 Let’s say for shits and giggles that you’re 100% correct. Would that mean that either a) Rangers fans didn’t sing all those songs or that b) they should be let off with it, on the grounds that lots of other people do similar things?

The latter would have interesting consequences for law enforcement generally, I think. After all, plenty of people defraud grannies out of their savings as well, to pick a random example, but “Other people steal even more” wouldn’t cut it in front of a judge. Plenty of clubs have pitch invasions and objects thrown onto the park, but that’s not a valid excuse.

I went to my first ever auld firm game this year (Parkhead) – 80% of the stadium were waving the tri-colours – the remainder waved the union jack.

Surely such inflammatory gestures are bad for the game – why, oh why can’t fans on both sides display something more conciliatory like the UN flag instead?

The trouble with this policing of football songs comes when a majority of fans think there’s nothing wrong with a particular song. The Billy Boys is sung by whole stands – not just a minority of sectarian bigots. It’s a Rangers song. It comes naturally at moments of excitement. These UEFA bureaucrats should stick to things they understand.
They clearly don’t understand the Glasgow fans. They want to make everything bland and Disneyesque.
I went to a couple of Glasgow derbies 30 years ago. The first one at Parkhead ended 3-3.
The atmosphere was electric – and it was ”IRA” and ”UDA” songs all over the place.
The Pope was due to visit England and Scotland, and so the Celtic fans fun about that.

And Rangers fans sang about a Celtic player who had accidentally electrocuted himself to death in his attic when doing some DIY – to the tune of ”It’s my party and I’ll cry if I want to”.
It was in terrible taste, but had THE WHOLE of the Rangers terrace at Parkhead bouncing up and down while singing it over and over. And it was therefore actually funny and memorable.

I went to my first ever auld firm game this year (Parkhead)…

I went to a couple of Glasgow derbies 30 years ago.

Since we’re sharing, I was at the infamous “game of shame” a few weeks back. I heard a bit of sectarian singing on the way to the ground, but during the game the only suspect chanting I heard was the Irish national anthem from a small part of the Celtic crowd, and that for about fifteen seconds.

The rest of the time, it was pop songs and old, largely inoffensive standards. Despite the lack of IRA songs etc. it was an electric, carnival atmostphere throughout, more so even than the games against Man Utd. a couple of years back.

You still get the IRA bullshit at away games, but I suggest that if we can manage a game against Rangers without much of that stuff, with no appreciable diminution of atmosphere, then we probably don’t need it in the first place. Maybe if the fans policed themselves a little better, we might see a reduction in the number of teenagers being stabbed to death after games and so on.

Or, more succinctly: I’m not buying the idea that the Old Firm games would be any less entertaining with the poisonous crap removed, and I’m not particularly amenable to arguments about the supposed uniqueness of the fixture as an excuse for people to act like arseholes.

[32] the tri-colours and union jacks are inflammatory emblems of the sectarian divide in Scotland – or to put it another way a picture (or flag) says more than a thousand words (or sectarian chant).

If corrupt officials like Sepp Blatter & Co want to take their snout out of the trough long enough to point the finger at Ranger’s fans surely they are obliged to comment on all the other paraphernalia associated with roots of this problem?

As a Spurs fan I get a little fed up with ignorant do-gooders attacking my club over its anti-racism history.

Spurs are not and have never been a Jewish Club. They are however in a part of London that required fans from other teams to travel up through large Jewish neighbourhoods to get to away games.

This led Chelsea, West Ham and Leeds fans (more than most, but not exclusively those three) to shout anti-semitic abuse at Spurs games in the 70s and 80s. (People didn’t drive to games remember, they got the train so all came the same route)

Spurs fans took up solidarity with their small number of Jewish fans and took up a chant of “Yidd Army” which gradually saw the term “Yiddo” become a mark of high regard by Spurs fans for favoured players.

Now – with that remarkable history long before the days when men in suites gave a monkeys about what football fans though about black people or other minorities – one would think there might be some recognition of a movement that has been remembered only by spurs fans.

Instead people like badiel pretend that Spurs start the anti-semitism by chanting their solidarity and so drawing hated from other clubs- rather than acknowledging that his own club – Chelsea – a hotbed of National Front and Combat 18 recruitment – were the source of it.

It is at least a little shy of the BNP claiming there would be no racism if we got rid of all the minorities. But not far shy.

Also – all of this has overlooked the worst genuine offence among football fans – that of homophobia.

Homophobic chanting is still rife.

Spurs fans once sang of Sol Campbell

“Sol Sol – wherever you may be.
Not long now till lunacy.
Don’t give a £$%^ if you’re hanging from a tree
You Judas *&^$ with HIV”

The remarkable thing was that this awful ditty was accused of being racist (apparently do-gooders are more likely to have watched Mississippi’s Burning than studied christianity – and so thought hanging from a tree was about some other culture’s bizarre past – not about our own culture’s iconic end to Judas’ life)

It was not however attacked for being homophobic – which the HIV reference definately was (not least because of rumours about Sol Campbell’s private life and other chants about his sexuality)

Football should ponder why homophobia is still fine – because offensive chanting is part of the fun – but biggotry never should be.

Margin4error, did you ever read this? About the Sol Campbell song..

If Spurs or their fans are disciplined it could prove a crucial moment in the battle for the heart and soul of football. Do we want inoffensive ‘light banter’ or do we want irreverent, unruly, X-rated insult-trading? Do we a hymnal of approved chants or do we want unscripted, unregulated vulgarity? Do we want a hushed church congregation or a seething, passionate crowd? I know which I prefer. If you don’t want sanitised football then you have to side with the Spurs fans.

http://www.spiked-online.com/index.php/site/article/5803/

North Brabant in general (as well as Eindhoven obviously) is majority catholic, not that I’d expect those football supporters to know this, but you never know.