Paul Elliott was subjected to racist chants when he joined Celtic in 1989 and lost little time in embarking on an educational crusade. By the time he moved to Chelsea, in 1991, he had won the title of Scottish Player of the Year and supporters' hearts.
A brutal challenge that caused severe damage to the ligaments in his right knee forced him out
of the game in 1994. It was then that he turned his attention to another aspect of the game entirely and devoted his time to the Let's Kick Racism Out of Football campaign.
Now Amnesty International is turning its attention to the racial and religious hatred associated with Scottish football. The human rights group is organising Scotland United, a five-a-side football fundraising tournament on May 3. It has also developed a Team Up Against Racism e-postcard campaign, which calls on all 42 Scottish Premier League, First Division, Second Division and Third Division clubs that make up the Scottish Football League to fully implement the Uefa Ten Point Plan of Action Against Racism.
''Action is urgently needed to tackle racism in the game and protect the human right of freedom from discrimination,'' says Amnesty's Liz Walsh, who is
co-ordinating Scotland United.
Elliot will launch the campaign today along with The Proclaimers, under-21 youth coach Rainer Bonhof and SPFA representative Fraser Wishart.
''There's a fantastic amount of good people in Scotland, but raising awareness makes people realise how awful it feels,'' says Elliott, adding that racism was not a
factor in his leaving Celtic, which was for ''personal and professional reasons''.
He sees campaigning against racism in football as part of his duty to the game that has given him so much. ''I was among the first generation of black players trying to make their living from football in this country and I took the view that it was par for the course for
me to do my bit to raise awareness of racism.''
From his visits to schools and meetings with young footballers, he detects cautious grounds for optimism. ''I can put my hand on my heart and say it has got better. There is far greater acceptance now that we are in a multi-cultural, multi-ethnic world. Over 20% of players in England are from ethnic minorities and we are beginning to see black players coming through into the administrative side of the game. Individual clubs have taken a lot of responsibility for new initiatives to deal with the problem from the grass roots. Although that is beginning to work, there is still a long way to go.''
Endorsing Amnesty's Scotland United tournament, he adds: ''Scotland is a wonderful country, but it has the same problems as everywhere else. The most wonderful thing about football is that it can bring everyone together.'' His knees, he claims, will no longer allow him to take part himself, but he'll be on the pitch in spirit on May 3.
Amnesty International's Scottish office hopes widespread support for the Uefa Ten Point Plan of Action Against Racism from the grassroots of football in Scotland will persuade all 42 clubs to take a much more public stand against racism. They should, for example, print a statement that they will not tolerate racism; take action against people who chant racist insults in all programmes; and take disciplinary action against players who engage in racist abuse.
Amnesty is recruiting 48 teams to take part in the Scotland United tournament. All are guaranteed five games of 15 minutes each and their entry fee of (pounds) 120 per team will be refunded if they raise (pounds) 350 in sponsorship. The team that raises most sponsorship will win seven tickets to a World Cup qualifier in September.
Entry forms for Scotland United are available from Amnesty International on 0131 466 6200, or
e-mail scotland@amnesty.org.uk E-postcards can be signed at www.amnesty.org.uk/scotland
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 hereComments are closed on this article