Member

To the noble Baroness, Lady Fox, and the noble Lord, Lord Londesborough, and others, I say that football clubs quite rightly have policies to protect staff from abuse. My own football club, Brighton and Hove Albion, make it absolutely clear that they have a zero-tolerance policy towards abuse. If fans break that, they will be eventually sanctioned and removed from the stadium. However, there are really serious problems in football grounds; racism, as we know, in the past has been widespread. It is quite right that there have been major campaigns to stamp out racism in football. We cannot allow some of that bad behaviour to be condoned or allowed as “banter”, in the words of the noble Lord.