What short memories some politicians must have. This is what Stewart Maxwell, the then Sport Minister, said on 8 September 2007: “People would be quite cynical if we just carried on having summits. While it looks nice and gets on the news, I don't think it fundamentally tackles the problem.”
And he added: “The problem with having high-profile events is that you make it look like it's a big societal problem. There are big swathes of the country where sectarianism is unknown.”
Mr Maxwell was speaking after the newly-elected SNP administration decided to do away with Jack McConnell’s anti-sectarian summit programme.
And what happened this week? A summit was hosted by the First Minister, designed to try to find a way of tackling yet more Old Firm violence.
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Back in 2007, the SNP government insisted it was scrapping the summits because they were no longer useful and because the problem of sectarianism was not as bad as it had been before. There was always the strong suspicion, however, that the reason the incoming government dropped the summits was because they were a relic of the Labour era, they were so much a McConnell initiative that Alex Salmond wanted nothing to do with them, or with his predecessor. So, we used to have anti-sectarian summits, hosted by the First Minister and bringing together all the major stakeholders. These were then dropped and then, hey presto, in the wake of more Old Firm-related violence, we get them back again. Fergus Ewing’s arguments in trying to justify why this new summit was different would have been amusing had the issue not been so serious. “This Government has moved the focus from summits about sectarianism - which was important at the time and gained the support and consensus of all key stakeholders - to supporting projects that are delivering change on the ground through a range of activities,” said Mr Ewing, after his government’s summit on sectarianism on Tuesday. A source close to the First Minister insisted that although this week's event had been a "summit", it had not been a summit about sectarianism, it had been a lot broader than that – even though ministers emerged from the get-together to announce new money for anti-sectarian groups. Let’s get this clear: either the summits work or they don’t. If they don’t – as the SNP insisted when it took office – then the current Scottish government is being hypocritical by re-introducing them. Or, alternatively, they do work and – by hosting one – the Scottish government has effectively admitted it was wrong to drop them in the first place. Whichever is right, the whole issue has hardly been handled very well – and that is a shame because the issue of Old Firm violence goes to the heart of what is wrong with Scotland. That is because Old Firm violence is bound up with poverty, alcoholism and intolerance. They are inextricably linked. According to figures which were widely publicised this week, violent offences rise 172 per cent in Glasgow if an Old Firm match takes place on a Saturday, and by 65 per cent if the game takes place on a weekday. Domestic violence rises by 96.6 per cent if the game takes place on a Sunday and 56.8 per cent if it takes place during the week. These figures are not entirely conclusive, because other research has suggested that rates of domestic violence are so high most of the time in parts of Glasgow that an Old Firm match hardly makes any difference. But that isn't really the point. There is plenty of evidence – anecdotal and statistical – to point to a rise in crime, in violence and in drunkenness. All of which, we know, result in increased levels of domestic abuse. So it would be better all round if we acknowledged this and didn't get stuck with quibbling over the exact extent of the problem. Unfortunately, there has been a tendency among those in authority – not just at the moment but for many years – to dance round the hideous problems sparked by Old Firm matches, in case they somehow launch in and have a go at something sacred and special to Scotland. That is because football is Scotland’s national game and because the Old Firm are supposed to reflect the pinnacle of club football in Scotland. But that is the very reason we should be tackling this head-on. It is because it is Scotland’s national game and because the Old Firm represent the shop-window of the game here that we should be hyper-sensitive to the image this sends out. Think about how this looks to the rest of the world. Scotland’s national game and the country’s two top teams appear to spark an orgy of drink-fuelled violence and wife-beating when they play each other. No wonder Scotland is seen as a sick, violent, drunken man by much of the world. This is the image we export through our football, and that is why it is so important to tackle it. Yet it is because it is so central to Scottish life that it has never been properly and adequately tackled. Our leaders appear so scared to interfere with something so fundamental to Scots identity that they won’t take hard-line steps such as forcing the Old Firm to play behind closed doors – for a whole season if necessary, with no cameras present. The only way to deal with this is to hit the clubs in the pocket, hard. Force them to play their games at 9am or behind closed doors and prevent them from making anything from television rights. If that happened, and if the clubs couldn’t buy any players from anybody, then the clubs and their supporters would realise pretty quickly that the only way to become competitive again would be to behave. I have two young children. The older one likes football, yet there is no way I am going to take him to an Old Firm game or even anywhere near Glasgow while an Old Firm fixture is underway. Like many Scots, I used to go to Old Firm games many years ago but there is no way I want my children exposed to the violence, the vitriol, the abuse and the drunken bigotry that was associated with these fixtures then and is still, depressingly, associated with these fixtures today. It is a disgrace to Scotland. The rest of the world sees it and it is time we saw it through their eyes, too. It is also time we stopped pussy-footing around at these summits – arguing whether they work or whether they don’t, arguing whether the football clubs really are to blame or not – and took some drastic, proper action to clean up this problem which tars the whole of the country.Donate to us: support independent, intelligent, in-depth Scottish journalism from just 3p a day
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