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Why won’t Humza Yousaf condemn C****c fans? (article)


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Article in The Spectator currently:

Saturday saw celtic lift the Scottish Premiership trophy after a 5-0 victory over Aberdeen. Fans crammed into Parkhead, in Glasgow’s east end, to watch goals from Kyogo Furuhashi, Hyeon-Gyu Oh and Carl Starfelt. By way of celebration, Hoops supporters painted the town green — and then some. 

Ten people were arrested on suspicion of assault, police assault and public order offences. Three men were hospitalised after being ‘seriously assaulted’. Video footage shows a firework being set off among a crowd of fans while a viral clip has captured the scale of the clean-up operation faced by Glasgow City Council after supporters dumped litter throughout the city’s streets. 

A senior police officer has blasted the revellers for ‘an unacceptable level of anti-social behaviour and incidents of disorder’. Alison Thewliss, SNP MP for Glasgow Central, called on celtic FC to foot the cleaning bill. But one person who has yet to comment is Humza Yousaf, Scotland’s first minister and one of its most prominent celtic fans. Both his political and ministerial Twitter accounts are silent on the weekend’s events. 

You might not expect a senior politician to remark on such things, but Yousaf has long used his Twitter account as a moralistic soapbox to pass judgement on everything from the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and the murder of George Floyd to Donald Trump and gun control in the United States. Normally, he can be relied upon to tweet his condemnation of bad behaviour by football clubs and their fans, at least when it comes to celtic’s arch rivals, Rangers FC. 

When Rangers fans swarmed Glasgow’s George Square to celebrate their club clinching the league trophy in May 2021, police reported public disorder, property damage and assaults, including the firing of flares at officers. This was, Yousaf tweeted at the time, ‘disgraceful’ and ‘thuggery’. 

Yousaf has even used social media to endorse criminal investigation of his team’s rivals, and while he was Scotland’s justice secretary no less. May 2021 was clearly a busy month for him because it also saw him tweet about a TikTok video claiming to show Rangers players singing anti-Catholic songs. Yousaf, then serving as Nicola Sturgeon’s justice secretary, said it was ‘right’ for Police Scotland to investigate the video and, if found to be genuine, for Rangers to sack anyone involved in the offensive chants. Detectives investigated but concluded: ‘[E]xtensive enquiries have been carried out and no criminality has been established’, later saying they believed the clip to have been ‘edited to include sectarian language’. Yousaf refused to back down. 

Yousaf’s silence so far on Saturday’s scenes is, as the kids say, Not A Good Look. Bill Shankly said football was more important than life and death. In Glasgow, celtic and Rangers are more important than football. At its best, their rivalry heightens the stakes of the game in Glasgow and the west of Scotland. At its worst, it is a divisive cultural phenomenon commonly associated with religious prejudice and sectarianism, a reputation Scottish football and wider society have strived to shake off. 

Humza Yousaf follows a long line of senior politicians who have worn their Old Firm allegiances on their sleeves, but no previous first minister has been so openly and doggedly tribal. Then again, celtic fans are generally seen as sympathetic to the SNP after generations of voting Labour. (The political sympathies of Old Firm supporters are actually more complicated.)

Given the polls show him haemorrhaging seats to Labour ahead of the next general election, maybe Yousaf figures he can’t afford to alienate anyone else. 

 

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19 minutes ago, SeparateEntityMyArse said:

He has.

He called it a "small minority" in a release that looked like it was written by Lawell. 😂😂

He's yet another republican appeaser/ sympathiser who'll not jeopardise his core vote by calling them out. Ira songs, disorder, CSA - ssshhhhhhhhh.

He'll not be FM long, but the next along will likely be as bad.

 

 

It probably was written by 'Liewall'. :craphead:

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Interesting how he manages to bring Rangers into it in his one statement he makes which was only in response to being asked.

 

Speaking to Radio Clyde News Humza Yousaf said: “I think it's a pretty sensible suggestion from Alison Thewliss.

“The vast majority of football fans, if they are celtic fans or indeed Rangers fans or any other fans frankly, celebrate in a way that is acceptable.

“They celebrate the important achievements of their club.

“It is that small minority I'm afraid of that really celebrates in a way that is simply unacceptable.

“That disorder that we saw, elements of that disorder we saw of course over the weekend, was just not acceptable.

“I do think clubs should pay a greater toll and certainly when it comes to celebrations.

“Perhaps there's something the clubs should do to facilitate that celebration, perhaps within their own stadiums or in another way.

“I would like clubs to take more responsibility for title celebrations that ensue.”

 

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