NEIL Lennon last night insisted Scottish football was being 'dragged into the gutter' by the death threats aimed at referee John Beaton.
These threats are the latest in what is a worrying number of unacceptable incident in recent months, which have included the Hibernian manager being hit by a coin at the end of the Edinburgh derby.
And Lennon believes this is shaming the country, with his former team-mate Chris Sutton also a target.
Lennon, speaking to the BBC, said: "It's absolutely disgraceful. I think it's dragging the name of Scottish football into the gutter.
"I've been involved in incidents like this myself - as a lot of people have been - and it just seems to be one thing after another now.
"It's shameful and my sympathies go to John and his family.
"The guy is just trying to do his job as honestly as he can so we have to address this issue.
"I've been saying for a long time now, the authorities aren't strong enough on the perpetrators of these acts. The authorities - whether it's in football or in government - need to crackdown on this.
"It's happening far too often and it's very, very distressing, not only for the individual but his loved ones and friends. It's just totally out of order.
"It's a game of football but these people need to be brought to justice and humiliated in public.
"Hopefully that will be a deterrent for anyone else thinking about doing it.
"Referees get criticised and that's fine because they will make mistakes as we all do - but don't go beyond that. It's a game of football at the end of the day.
"It's a sport that we all love and these people are darkening the image of the game. Scottish football in essence is a great public spectacle and these people are spoiling it. And it's not a minority either - my worry is that it's happening far too often now."
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereLast Updated:
Report this comment Cancel