The flaw in this plan though is that it only works for those directly involved, invite 10 and those 10 will likely behave with a small chance of influencing 10 others, most of the other hundreds will feel victimised for not getting an invite and will be further disenfranchised. Whereas if we arrest 10, we'll stop the lot of them.
As a society, we've pussy-footed around for far too long, where discipline is concerned. Ban anyone found in possession of a smoke bomb or flare and make some arrests when that song is being sung.
I respect your approach, but I have my doubts it would work. As had already been said, it would only work for the small number invited. They would just see it as an opportunity to get a selfie with players, not as an opportunity to change.
I think the clubs in a tricky position. It’s easy to suggest throwing bans around but the club will only want to do that as a last resort. We simply don’t have the fan base to ban too many unless it’s 100% deserved. If a fan for example has let pyro off inside the concourse then ban him for life that’s dangerous, if a fan has racially abused a player then ban him for life that’s disgraceful. However if a fan has let pyro off after celebrating a goal in the stand or has joined in singing a song which contains a racial stereotype I don’t think they should be banned, obviously what they’ve done is wrong but I’d be trying all I can as a club to change these fans perception of what they’re doing rather than resorting to instant bans. These fans need educating rather than banning. That’s my view anyway.
The approach simply wouldn’t work. We aren’t dealing with five year old children who are being asked to change their behaviour by their favourite Disney character. We’re dealing with large groups of people of all ages who are basking in the controversy that goes hand in hand with their actions whether it’s at Oakwell, an away ground or on social media. There’s no place for racism in today’s society but at the end of the day you can’t force someone to educate themselves. If anyone’s guilty of engaging in said behaviour within Oakwell then a ban is the only option as far as I’m concerned.
Jay - I agree, the problem is going to worsen because it has ben handled appallingly badly by the club. They've scored a spectacular own goal. There will be those who genuinely don't see anything racist or offensive in the chant whilst others (myself included) think it offensive. The club clearly takes the line that it is offensive referring to 'stereotypical language' etc. The 'chant' has had massive publicity on social media and in the national press and the whole footballing world will be looking to see how it is handled. I was there for the Fulham match and there were 100's cheering and chanting the song.
Whilst i agree to a certain extent, you only have to look at Facebook and Twitter to see people attempting to explain why it’s wrong. Just met with “no pyro no party”, and “snowflakes”. Also, by retaining fans who won’t behave you could be losing more who can’t put up with the behaviour. I’ve pretty much decided to not bother with away games. Sad cos Im getting close to 92... I’m just sick of having my experience as a fan being ruined by people who just don’t care.
I’ll gladly admit my complete ignorance to why pagan classification is considered racist. I know they had a separate calendar and anything else is from Hollywood, so I’m not going to give that any credence.
Can we rewind to where the club have handled this appallingly? It's Monday evening. I'm sure everyone at the club has felt the full force of the weekend and are speaking to various departments internally and externally about what took place. By 11am today they'd released a statement yet again condemning the behaviour of a minority of fans. There's an assumption here we're just dealing with children or 'the Barnsley Yoof'. We're not. We don't need to be inviting select ones in for meetings with the players, we need to be banning anyone found with a flare or smoke bomb inside or outside the ground. We can't be as ruthless on the chanting, because the intention isn't racist, even if the song is. That's a trickier one to handle and one Manchester United couldn't get right straight away.
I'd put out a lengthy press release explaining why the chant is unwelcome, unacceptable and not reflective of the club's values. Accept that people may have been ignorant of the implications previously but it will not be tolerated moving forward. Make it known that the club is going to film the ponty, identify the seats of people singing it, their names go into a hat and 5 get lifetime bans. Every match from here on out.
Arrest for singing the song Arrested for singing that song? I don't want to hear it again, but arrested is abit far fetched, on what grounds exactly? There is a song sung by the minority in the corner and on away days with the lyrics "**** the pope" this could be highly offensive for catholic supporters and players can we have police arresting people singing this song aswell please?
Quoting the statistical evidence isn't racist, but if you have 10,000 people singing "he's got sickle cells" when there's no evidence that he does in fact have sickle cell disease then yes, I would say that's an issue.