Strict Liability is the only way to tackle the sectarian "cancer" in Scottish football, a BBC sports pundit has said.
Michael Stewart said a tougher crackdown on clubs over sectarian chanting is the "only way we're gonig to get to the root cause of this and stamp it out".
Speaking on BBC Radio Scotland's Good Morning Scotland, Stewart told how paying lip service wasn't enough and that clubs needed to take more serious action over supporters chanting abuse in the stands.
He said: "This is a problem, not just in football but in society. The government tried to introduce legislation with the Offensive Behaviour at Football Act, that's been quashed and thrown out now. We need to do something ...
"This is a great country we’ve got here but we’ve got a cancer and we need to stamp it out."
His comments come after Kilmarnock boss Steve Clarke called out Rangers fans who called him a “Fenian b******”, lambasting them for dragging Scottish football into the "dark ages".
Clarke said: "We’re living in the dark ages. They’re not allowed to call my assistant a black b but they can call me a Fenian b******. Is that correct? What are we doing in Scotland?".
'We've got a cancer and we need to stamp it out'
Anti-sectarian charity Nil By Mouth agreed that Scottish football has spent too long ignoring the issue, and said that responsbility should lie at the feet of clubs.
Speaking on the same radio programme, the charity's director David Scott said: "We’re not talking about one-offs, we’re not talking about a single individual ... We’re talking about hundreds, dozens at away matches, chanting this sickening sectarian abuse."
He added that Scottish football has "failed for generations to tackle sectarianism" and expressed dismay at the "noisy, sizable minority of people who insist on shouting the loudest".
When asked if clubs in Scotland were doing enough to tackle the issue, he replied: "It’s difficult to combat if you don’t throw a punch."
'The clubs and governing bodies do not have the bottle, the backbone, the spine to do something about it.'
Scott added: "Most people who go to watch football in Scotland are decent human beings. They have no truck with this, no interest in it. They just want to enjoy the game ...
"The dilemma for the silent majority of fans is – how do you deal with this? How do you identify people within your ranks who are behaving in this manner?"
He also echoed calls for the Scottish game to adopt Europe's Strict Liability rules.
He said: "The elephant in football’s room: Strict Liability, which is a European model for tackling this kind of behaviour. It holds clubs responsible for consistent failures to tackle this issue.
"What we’ve seen in Scottish football – particularly, it has to be said, from the Old Firm clubs - is a complete washing of hands and saying ‘This is nothing to do with us, this is society’s problem, we can’t solve it’. Even though we’re creating an environment where people are going to matches and behaving in this manner.
"Why do we allow this permissive environment in football to go on? It’s simply because the clubs and governing bodies do not have the bottle, the backbone, the spine to do something about it."
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