There is no room for sectarian bigotry within sport. In recognition of this, the Scottish Executive established the Sectarianism in Football Working Group in May 2006. Chaired by David Taylor, Chief Executive of the Scottish Football Association, the role of the working group was to develop a strategy for tackling sectarianism in football. The group consisted of senior representatives from sportscotland, the Association of Chief Police Officers in Scotland, Scottish Premier League and Scottish Football League.
On the 1 September 2006, Football Banning Orders were introduced in Scotland. The Minister for Justice launched the Straight Red awareness campaign at Hampden Park on the 26 August that was jointly funded by Strathclyde Police and the Scottish Executive. Using a variety of media including radio adverts, posters and mobile ad-trailers at football stadia, the campaign sought to highlight that violent, sectarian or racist abuse at football matches would not be tolerated and could result in those caught and convicted being banned from football grounds for up to ten years.
Further work on tackling sectarianism within sport involved gathering views from supporters groups on sectarian attitudes. An Executive Summary of the research is available and recommends a number of initiatives including anti-sectarian training, further publicity to fans of anti-sectarian initiatives and sharing of good practice in tackling bigotry from across the UK. The findings from this consultation have been fed into the
Sectarianism in Football Strategy