Scott Brown carefully side-stepped a plan by BBC Scotland to get involved in discussing discriminatory chanting in Scottish football.
Last week the Celtic skipper was quizzed on the issue ahead of the Europa League tie with Lazio who have been repeatedly punished by UEFA for racist related incidents.
England’s recent European Championship match with Bulgaria saw play stopped twice during the first half by the match referee with tannoy announcements made requesting that racist chanting stops. A third request would have resulted in the match being abandoned but that situation never arose.
Brown was on duty at Hampden today to promote the semi-finals of the Betfred Cup but the BBC Scotland reporter attempted to get some comments about those international rules being applied domestically, with sectarian chants replacing racist issues.
The Celtic skipper saw the potential headlines emerging, stuck to the traditional lines and avoided getting dragged into the sectarian debate.
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The full interview is on Celtic TV.
BBC SCOTLAND: In a Scottish domestic game would you guys be willing to step off the pitch if you hear any discriminatory chanting in Scottish games?
BROWN: I’ve not really heard any in Scotland and here’s hoping that it stays that way but, yes, you’ve got to stick up for your team-mates, stick up for what you believe in as well. It’s that respect that we want to see in football stadiums
BBC SCOTLAND: I guess it’s not racist chanting maybe they are thinking about, it’s other things, sectarian chanting that sort of thing falls under that bracket now. It’s the appropriate steps that FIFA sees, is that something that you
BROWN: Yeah, they are trying to set those steps. It’s the way it has to go, it’s the way forward for football, especially in Scotland too.
It’s unclear if the same question was put to the three other captains at Hampden today.
