Scotland's senior football clubs are facing renewed pressure to sign up to new sanctions for dealing with sectarian, racist and offensive behaviour.
In the wake of renewed controversy over incidents at Scottish matches, including the Old Firm League Cup semi-final and last Friday's Raith versus Rangers game, campaigners have written to all 42 SPFL teams urging them to accept the 'strict liability' ruling.
Strict liability is the standard used by European football's governing body UEFA for tackling offensive behaviour, with sanctions include fines, closure of section of grounds, playing matches behind closed doors and docking of league points.
Senior insiders in the game have urged clubs to re-examine their stance on the issue or face increasing public pressure, comparing the mood with what led to the Royal & Ancient Golf Club changing its men-only membership rules last year.
The clubs voted against the introduction of strict liability in a meeting with the Scottish Football Association in 2013.
Anti-sectarian campaign group Nil by Mouth has now urged the 42 SPFL clubs to revisit the proposals at its AGM in May and called on political parties to unite in support of the plans.
Campaign director Dave Scott also compared the reluctance of clubs and football authorities to get involved with their visible support for the re-introduction of alcohol at football.
He said: "It's revealing to compare the very pro-active response of Scottish Football to reintroducing alcohol at games with its inaction to implementing a set of principles which could effectively tackle bigotry at games.
"If the game is seen to be putting booze higher on its list of priorities than bigotry that would be a quite depressing signal.
"We have been calling for a number of years for UEFA's ' strict liability ' principles to be introduced into Scottish football and are writing to all SPFL clubs calling on them to bring the proposals back to their AGM in May and vote in favour of it.
"Sectarianism has been a stain on Scottish football for too long and there are moral, economic and sporting reasons for taking this course of action. Our calls also mirror recommendations made by Scottish Government's advisory group on sectarianism which called on the game to introduce European style sanctions."
He said the English FA introduced strict liability, adding that given the amount of public money flowing into football politicians of all parties would support the campaign.
One senior insider in the game said: "The stance of the clubs is embarrassing. Those who don't really have a problem hide behind voting no to its introduction just in case they're caught out.
"They're going to be forced into a situation like the R&A where the weight of public opinion will force them into doing something."
Neil Doncaster, SPFL Chief Executive, said: "The SPFL continues to abhor sectarian behaviour of all kinds and will continue to work with all other bodies in Scottish football to tackle it.
"The current SPFL Rules are very clear. On the basis of those it is difficult to understand how it would be deemed fair to punish a club in circumstances where the club has indeed done all that can reasonably be expected of it before, during and after a match in order to prevent and deal with unacceptable behaviour and to prevent any repeat.
"However the code of conduct for clubs, set out in SPFL Rules, remains under constant review and we welcome suggested improvements."
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