A Holyrood committee has said it is "vital" to hear in person from football chiefs as it scrutinises proposals to scrap the legislation that outlaws offensive behaviour at matches.
Conservative MSP Margaret Mitchell, convener of the Scottish Parliament's Justice Committee, has written to the Scottish Professional Football League (SPFL) and the Scottish Football Association (SFA) to voice disappointment that representatives are not so far lined up to attend an evidence session later this month.
She said their attendance would help committee members have "the fullest possible understanding" of the issues surrounding the impact of the Offensive Behaviour at Football and Threatening Communications (Scotland) Act.
READ MORE: Thousands join Scottish Labour to vote in leadership race
Holyrood's Justice Committee is examining Labour MSP James Kelly's Member's Bill to repeal the controversial Act.
The legislation was aimed at tackling sectarian behaviour around football matches and online, but opponents argue it is unnecessary in light of existing laws and unfairly targets football fans.
In separate letters to SPFL chief executive Neil Doncaster and SFA chief executive Stewart Regan, Ms Mitchell notes that both bodies initially declined invitations to attend a committee session on November 14 and offered to attend at another time or give written evidence.
In the SFA letter, she wrote: "However, the Justice Committee's work programme is incredibly busy, and the timetable for consideration of this Bill offers no leeway for an evidence session on another date."
She went on: "I am disappointed that a key stakeholder such as the SFA is not able to appear before the committee to provide committee members with the opportunity to question you on an issue as central to its work as offensive behaviour at football matches."
READ MORE: Thousands join Scottish Labour to vote in leadership race
She spoke of her disappointment in the same terms in the letter to the SPFL.
Ms Mitchell added that all committee members "share the same view that it is vital to hear in person" from the two bodies.
A spokesman for the SPFL said: "We have already offered to send an SPFL representative to the meeting and have been in discussions with the committee clerk to finalise arrangements."
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