Free speech and fan behaviour

I’m happy to say that VAR was not the talking point after both Scottish Cup semi-finals, but free speech was, or rather the banning of a pundit from the game.  I'm a journalist and we all have an opinion – it’s our job is to pass comment on footballing issues and, of course, some people agree with what we say and some don’t.

Michael Stewart, who works for Premier Sports amongst other broadcasters, was told to stay away from last month's friendly at Hampden between Scotland and Japan, due to his outspoken criticisms of matches officials. The same thing happened last weekend when he was working for Premier Sports for both Scottish cup semi-finals, however on Saturday's Dunfermline v Falkirk game, he took part in the coverage from a van in the car park, but he was later told his ban incorporated the entire stadium footprint. The SFU understands that this is because, while no-one at Hampden denies his right to criticise fairly, the comments had seemingly strayed beyond that in a number of instances.

Note, Michael Stewart has not been ‘silenced’ (I don’t think that’s possible!) – he can still say what he thinks, but the issue is around the ban from Hampden.  He has apparently agreed to meet with the SFA to talk about this but so far there's no resolution reported. It's a sorry state of affairs. For the SFA, the publicity has not been good. The media will always circle the wagons to protect their own and the sooner this is sorted the better.

There have been a number of times over the years that SPFL clubs have banned media from press conferences and match days.  This is invariably counter-productive in my view.  Instead, clubs, and the media, should focus on fan behaviour. We’re still waiting for the outcome of the review of the scenes at the last Old Firm game, but that’s now slipped off the radar.  Anti-social behaviour by a minority of fans is still an issue though, as we saw at the second semi-final between Celtic and St Mirren when there was a horrible scene before the game.  The clubs and the authorities must be dreading what might happen at the next Old Firm game and, I trust, planning accordingly.

Michael McEwan, Ops Team, the SFU