They may pride themselves as being the best fans in the world but the Tartan Army has seen its reputation tarnished on the international stage following incidents involving the Israeli national football team.
World football governing body Fifa fined the Scottish FA £8,000 last month after Israel’s national anthem was booed by Scotland fans ahead of a World Cup qualifier at Glasgow’s Hampden Park in October.
The sanction was also applied over an “inappropriate” emblem, believed to be a Palestinian flag, that was waved at the game.
However, this was just the latest in a series of incidents involving Israeli players north of the border — where Jews make up just 0.1 per cent of the population — leading the country’s main anti-racism charity to conclude that such abuse is in danger of becoming “normalised” at the country’s football grounds.
For example, one so-called Scotland fan took to Facebook ahead of the Israel game to ask fellow supporters: “Is it OK to sing ‘We Hate England More Than Jews’?”
The Celtic player and Israeli international Nir Bitton, who has just completed a landmark 250 games for the Glasgow club, received horrific treatment at the hand of trolls at the beginning of this year after he was sent off in a vital game against rivals Rangers, which Celtic went on to lose.
Mr Bitton’s 29-year-old wife Bar Bitton posted screenshots of disturbing messages she had received on Instagram, which called for the couple to be “hung on the streets”. Further abuse was directed at the couple’s children, with one contributor writing: “F**K you and yer wains.”
The club, which describes itself as “open to all”, promised to investigate.
However, Celtic stonewalled the JC when asked whether it had followed up on that pledge.
Following a Euro 2020 qualifier play-off between Scotland and Israel in October last year, a convoy of vehicles drove past the synagogue in Giffnock, just three miles from Hampden, with passengers hanging out of windows waving the Palestine flag at locals.
Jordan Allison, campaign manager for Show Racism the Red Card, believes Scottish clubs have not done enough to put anti-racism measures in place at stadia.
This, he claims, allows antisemitic abuse to go unchecked in the stands. He said: “The problem we have in Scottish football is that these incidents are not being documented enough.
“The victims don’t feel confident enough to report it to police or stewards. In turn, the stewards are not trained in how to record it as a form of racism.
“There’s far more work to be done. We are so far behind in Scotland, the authorities are not at the stage yet where they can do something about it.”
Asked what steps it is taking to oppose antisemitism among supporters, the Scottish FA sent the JC a list of websites.
One of them was the SFA’s “Equality Framework”, which states its ambition to “demonstrate Hampden as an example of a best practise environment for diversity and inclusion”. That was published in advance of the Israel game, for which the organisation was fined.
Attending that match was life-long Scotland fan David Barnett, who also happens to be Jewish.
The Glasgow businessman said: “I was there when they were booing the Israeli national anthem. You can argue the toss if it’s antisemitism or anti-Zionism. There is only one Jewish state in the world and it is held to account by everyone in a holier-than-thou way.
"If Israel does anything wrong, those who wish to denigrate the state of Israel will do it any way they can.”
Mr Barnett has followed Scotland all over the world, to Albania, Slovenia, Slovakia, the Faroe Islands, Germany, France and the Czech Republic.
He has also advised fellow members of the Tartan Army on how they could make the most of their visit when Scotland travelled to play Israel in Haifa, which they enjoyed enormously. The Scots supporters maintained their near-20 year tradition of supporting children’s charities in foreign countries by making a £5,000 contribution to an Israeli premature baby unit.
He added: “People in Scotland are more concerned with Celtic and Rangers, so racism towards other minority groups is not dwelt upon too much.
“There are not many Jews in Scotland but it’s when Israel hits the news, well that’s when feeling against us rears its ugly head.
“How did I feel at Hampden when fellow fans booed the Israeli national anthem?
“Sadly, it happens and it’s really only by a small minority. I sang Hatikva under my breath anyway.”
The political landscape of Scotland has also shifted dramatically this year, with the co-founders of the Scottish Greens being handed top posts in the Scottish government in return for their party’s support for another independence referendum.
This is the party which, in 2015, condemned “Israel’s claim to be the Jewish state” and labelled Zionism as “based on Jewish supremacy in Palestine”.
