RANGERS legend Ally McCoist has called for the hooligans dragging Scottish football’s reputation through the mud to be jailed, believing action against individuals will be more effective than measures such as strict liability.
A spate of high-profile instances of disorder have blighted the game recently, with a fan being banned from Fir Park for life after throwing objects at James Tavernier in Rangers’ win over Motherwell and a coconut being thrown on the pitch in the Edinburgh derby at Tynecastle last weekend alone.
A fan who ran onto the pitch to confront Rangers captain Tavernier last month has now been jailed for 100 days, and McCoist believes that meting out similar punishments is the only way to deter such behaviour.
“We have to jail them,” McCoist said. “It’s that simple. In this day and age in our top stadiums, we’ve got cameras everywhere. I get it. I’m not along the lines of supporters pointing out other supporters. If I am going to a game with two of my boys, I’m hardly going to point out that it’s him or there might be trouble.
“But there are cameras. Just go an arrest these people. Throw them out and jail them. Ban them for life. We need to be more hands-on and deal with these people.
"I think the police should be more hands on. I don't know whether the police don't want to be hands on in respect of they want the clubs and the SFA to police themselves, there might be an element of that. But I think the police have just got to go in and start arresting people and throwing them in jail.
"All clubs have got a problem. Rangers and Celtic might have a bigger problem because they have got more fans, but all clubs have an element that cause them a problem.
"I just think the time has come for the police to go 'look enough's enough. We're arresting people and we're throwing them in the nick and they are getting banned from the stadium.'
"We have got to take really hard measures now."
McCoist doesn’t feel that the introduction of strict liability would be fair to the thousands of law-abiding supporters who back their team every week without incident, and that the burden of responsibility and therefore, punitive action, should rest with the individual.
"There's lots of fans who work all the hours that God sends, and they want to take their kids to a game of football,” he said. “That's what they do and that's what they've done with their dads too.
“How unfair would it be for the 99.9% to get their whole weekend that they look forward to when they are working ruined by a couple of idiots? I would just go in and jail them and embarrass them.
"The idiot that ran on the park at Easter Road against Rangers, they tell me his family are getting phone calls and people are coming to their door so that idiot has got to live with that and look what he's doing to his family. And if that doesn't hit home we've no chance.
"I think there has to be a responsibility from individuals, there has to be. For example, that Hearts v Hibs game I really enjoyed it, but which bampot would take a coconut to a game of football? Have we lost the plot? I'm all for fans winding each other up and have a good laugh, but who actually takes the time to go to a match and think 'whoops, I nearly forgot my coconut there?'
"There has to be an individual responsibility. The police are sick of it, they should just go in and say 'bang, nailed, there's the evidence there on TV' and start jailing people for not behaving themselves."
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