Latest news with #MikeMulraney
Daily Record
20 hours ago
- Health
- Daily Record
Scotland's first safe consumption room is a vital step, but far from the finish line
The opening of the first safe consumption room in the UK took years of legal wrangling and political pressure. It required a sea change in attitudes from police and prosecutors over how to respond to the drugs deaths crisis which has shamed Scotland for too many years. When The Thistle finally opened in January, it was still a hugely controversial move opposed in some political circles. It's aims are simple - to stop drug users from sharing needles and injecting in unhygienic environments, while at the same time being offered advice on how to access long-term rehab. Some may now question whether its been a success given that drugs deaths rose by a third in the first three months of a year. That means around 100 Scots are dying from substance abuse every month. But the opening of one safe consumption room in one city was never going to solve in 12 weeks what remains a nationwide public health emergency. We need more facilities like The Thistle, as part of a broader increase in access to rehabilitation services, if the number of deaths from drugs is to start falling year-on-year. Politicians like Alex Cole-Hamilton are right to call Scotland's drugs deaths crisis a national tragedy. The fact is there will be countless examples of people who could have turned their lives away from addiction if they had been able to access treatment when they most needed it. The battle to save lives from drugs continues to rage, we must ensure it is won. The Scottish Government must do more than talk a good game and provide the resources needed to reverse this grim tide. Ban footy yobs A small minority of football fans in Scotland feel they can behave any way they like at a match. Whether through acts of violence or irresponsible use of pyrotechnics, they seem act without regard to others. Join the Daily Record WhatsApp community! Get the latest news sent straight to your messages by joining our WhatsApp community today. You'll receive daily updates on breaking news as well as the top headlines across Scotland. No one will be able to see who is signed up and no one can send messages except the Daily Record team. All you have to do is click here if you're on mobile, select 'Join Community' and you're in! If you're on a desktop, simply scan the QR code above with your phone and click 'Join Community'. We also treat our community members to special offers, promotions, and adverts from us and our partners. If you don't like our community, you can check out any time you like. To leave our community click on the name at the top of your screen and choose 'exit group'. No wonder then that SFA chairman Mike Mulraney has called for a crackdown on yobbish behaviour. In today's Record he talks of 'no jeopardy' for those who step out of line and you can sense his frustration. Football banning orders exist to hammer the sort of behaviour Mulraney is talking about. But only five were issued last season despite the widespread use of pyros and high-profile incidents of disorder. If football matches are to be safe spaces for all fans, then the few who step out of line have to know there are consequences.
Daily Record
a day ago
- Business
- Daily Record
Rangers will never suffer Crystal Palace UEFA sweat as SFA chief makes dual ownership rules clear
Mike Mulraney explains that Ibrox takeover as well as Hearta and Hibs deal meet key criteria set by Hampden beaks Mike Mulraney insists the SFA would never allow dual ownership where it could cost clubs a place in Europe. Co-Leeds United investor, the 49ers group, has just bought a minority share in Rangers, similar to Brighton owner Tony Bloom at Hearts and Bournemouth's holding company Black Knight who have put money into Hibs. SFA chiefs have given these deals the green light but only because they are minority investments in the Scottish clubs. English FA Cup winners Crystal Palace are sweating on their European inclusion for next season because they also have control of French side Lyon. Mulraney said: 'We make sure if ever there is a contention about a dual-ownership model whereby the Scottish club would be seen as subordinate, that cannot be. You can't get investment rights unless you agree the Scottish club is never subordinate. 'In the event UEFA said, 'these two clubs can't play in the same competition, we've changed the rules', nobody really thought about it. The SFA ensures that the Scottish club is never subordinate.'
Daily Record
a day ago
- Sport
- Daily Record
SFA president demands football banning orders for yobs as he reveals rule changes to help thugs crackdown
Mike Mulraney has spoken out after a spate of ugly incidents during last season SFA chairman Mike Mulraney has called for a crackdown on Scottish football 's yobs with more banning orders dished out by the courts. The football supremo is furious after a series of flashpoints last season and believes the only way to tackle the menace is more football banning orders - which can see thugs barred from all UK stadiums for up to ten years. Mulraney said: 'What I'd say there is that there is a difference between loving your club and expressing that with vigour and exhilarating fashion and so forth, and chucking a seat. 'It's straight forward. It's criminal. The problem for me at the moment with the flares and so forth is there is no jeopardy to doing that. 'Until there is jeopardy for action you tend not to be able to change people's behaviour. So if we want to change behaviour we need banning orders. When you get banning orders, people won't do it because they don't want to be banned.' Our national game saw a meteoric rise in unwanted flashpoints last season. Former Aberdeen defender Jack MacKenzie was whacked in the face by a seat thrown by his own fans on the final day of the league campaign at Tannadice. While missiles and other objects were thrown on to the pitch during three Old Firm league matches in succession. And before last December's Premier Sports Cup final, fans of both Celtic and Rangers ran riot in Glasgow city centre. At the Edinburgh derby on Boxing Day, a Hearts supporter was ejected from Tynecastle and arrested in relation to an alleged incident of racism. And the continuing use of pyro by fans all over the country continues to give authorities a major headache. But the latest figures for the season just finished show that just five fans were hit with FBOs. This is a marked drop from 37 in the 2023/24 season and 59 in 2022/23. In the last decade across Scotland, a total of 504 FBOs have been issued with Rangers and Hibernian supporters topping the table - much of which related to the pitch invasion after the 2016 Scottish Cup Final. There is now support at government level for enforcing more FBOs and Mulraney believes it has to happen. He stated: 'Right now there is no jeopardy. I believe the Scottish Government is supportive of our view on this now. I believe the police are supportive of our view on this now. 'We're football, we can't go and sort that out. We need the judiciary to sort that out and if they need to tweak the wording on the legislation, tweak the wording on the legislation, that's their game. 'For me, it's really simple. At this point in time, misbehaviour seldom carries jeopardy. 'There is almost no jeopardy for misbehaviour. It's about protecting those who are not guilty of anything. Everyone's forgetting about them, the 99.8 percent of fans who wouldn't dream of doing it. Who's looking after them? 'Instead of everybody asking us to focus on the 0.2 percent, the real question should be 'what are you doing to protect all these people who are not breaking the law?' At the last Old Firm game in April at Ibrox, a bottle was thrown at Celtic keeper Viljami Sinisalo with Rangers substitute Neraysho Kasanwirjo - who had been warming up nearby - entering the pitch to remove it. Sinisalo said other items were directed towards him. 'First of all, I was hit with something in my lower leg,' said the Finn. 'It wasn't just a bottle, there was lighters, vapes, coins, mugs, all sorts. 'Let's say that glass bottle hits me or hits someone else, what happens next? What if it hits you in the eye and you can't play football after that. Those are the questions that we need answers for.' When Rangers and Celtic met at Ibrox in January, an object was thrown from the crowd and struck visiting midfielder Arne Engels, who required treatment. 'It's not the first time it's happened,' added Sinisalo. 'I was there when Arne was hit, [team-mate] Greg [Taylor] has been hit, [former Celtic keeper] Joe Hart's been hit, staff members have been hit. 'It's up to the authorities and the club there. I'm just glad I never got hit because things could be bad if you get hit.' During the same game a Celtic fan was also filmed mocking Ibrox disaster victims. There has been a huge debate over the use of pyrotechnics and smoke bombs. A lot of the ultras' scene want to be given the green light but Mulraney said that won't happen because they are illegal within stadiums. He stated: 'They've made the law. They've said it's illegal. On you go. I'm not the police nor should I be and I think that's important as well. 'People have got to remember that. Those who say we need football to do more outside the stadiums. 'We cannot ever be allowed to be the police of society, for there is the road to damnation for a society. "My job is to protect the fans who don't want it to happen. 'My job is to protect the fan with asthma who's standing three seats away from the guy who's smoking him out and he's leaving the game. 'It's for the government and the judiciary to instil jeopardy and it's for me to put pressure on them. 'I can ask for a banning order but if they don't do it there's not a lot I can do about that other than keep and put pressure on to make it happen. 'So we're changing our rules to improve the position that we can and we will support the police, the government and anyone else who's interested in installing some form of jeopardy behind the law of the land that they've already made.'
Daily Mail
3 days ago
- Sport
- Daily Mail
CALUM CROWE: We've reached the point of no return under Steve Clarke ... qualifying for the World Cup is now no more than a pipe dream
There was always a danger it would come to this. A danger that Steve Clarke's time as Scotland manager would turn bitter due to the feelings of anger and resentment that have festered among the Tartan Army. As the man who finally led our nation back to a major tournament, not once but twice, Clarke should be remembered fondly. Since taking charge in 2019, he has, by and large, been good for Scotland. He has presided over some terrific results and given the fans some brilliant memories along the way. But it's plain for all to see that his time is up. He's finished as manager. There is no real joy or celebration to be found in that assertion. It's just a painful reality and a reflection of how the national team have unravelled over the past year. Scotland will start their bid to reach the next World Cup very shortly, with the qualifiers starting in September. But there is no genuine prospect of Clarke taking this team to the finals in America. Instead, with a new campaign now only round the corner, Scotland are in the death throes of his reign. He looks like a busted flush and we are about to see another World Cup dream go down the drain. It is a bizarre state of affairs. With SFA chief executive Ian Maxwell and president Mike Mulraney seemingly in awe of Clarke, we are handcuffed to a manager who is patently no longer up to the job. Before Euro 2024 got under way last summer, Mulraney gave an interview in which he described Clarke as the 'perfect Scottish manager'. Just a fortnight later, after a pitiful showing across the three matches had seen Scotland eliminated at the group stage, few supporters would have shared that sentiment. For the second tournament in succession, Scotland stunk the place out. Clarke had shown a lack of ambition as manager and was tactically out of his depth. That was the time for him to go. A mutual parting of the ways at that stage would have seen most Scotland fans happy to shake his hand and thank him for all the good times, despite what happened in Germany. Instead, he was allowed to carry on. After disappearing from public view for a few months after the Euros, he eventually popped up again and started telling us how he was '75 per cent' sure he will leave after the World Cup campaign. That's not his decision to make. Or at least it shouldn't be. Not if he worked in an organisation with genuine accountability and an appetite for progression. The whole episode was embarrassing. Rekindling bad memories of how things panned out under Gordon Strachan, we were given the patronising impression that Clarke was somehow doing everyone a favour by remaining in charge. The 3-1 home defeat to Iceland last Friday night felt like a new low in the relationship between Clarke and the fans, with boos ringing out at full-time. It's perhaps just as well that Hampden was barely half-full, owing to the fact that tickets were priced as high as £40 — yes, forty quid — for an end-of-season friendly against a team ranked 74th in the world. The SFA tried a package deal to price the game in with the three home World Cup qualifiers later this year, but it didn't really work. To try and charge punters £40 to watch a friendly against Iceland was a nonsense. But that's by the by. In terms of on-field matters, it was inevitable that the headlines would focus on the calamitous performance of young goalkeeper Cieran Slicker on his debut. A young keeper who is third-choice for Ipswich Town should be nowhere near a Scotland squad, regardless of injuries to other players. His nightmare ended up taking the focus away from the fact that, once again, Scotland's general performance was utterly dreadful. Clarke only dodged the spotlight due to Slicker's misfortune. He got away with it, when, in reality, he had been every bit as culpable for the defeat as the 22-year-old. 'We had a bad night,' said Clarke afterwards. That was putting it mildly. Friendly or not, the performance was woeful against an Iceland side who had lost 3-1 to Kosovo and 4-1 to Wales over recent months. The fear is that the rot has now set in under Clarke. You can take it all the way back to when Scotland lost 1-0 at home to Northern Ireland in March last year. That was the night when alarm bells really started ringing. Scotland had lost momentum building up to the Euros and, barring the odd flicker in the Nations League, haven't really recovered it for any great length of time. They looked like they had turned a corner when a 0-0 draw with Portugal was followed by wins over Croatia, Poland and then Greece in the first leg of the play-off. But the way Clarke's side capitulated in the return at Hampden, losing 3-0 against a Greek side they will face in the World Cup qualifiers, was seriously worrying. Nothing they offered against Iceland did anything to dispel the feeling that Clarke has run his race as manager. Scotland now have players operating at the top level across Europe. A lot of them play under top managers for their clubs. Scott McTominay and Billy Gilmour have just won Serie A under Antonio Conte. Andy Robertson has gone from Jurgen Klopp to Arne Slot and a Premier League title at Liverpool. John McGinn plays under one of the most tactically-astute managers in Europe in Unai Emery at Aston Villa. Lewis Ferguson has won a Coppa Italia as captain of Vincenzo Italiano's dynamic and exciting Bologna side. Then they report for Scotland duty and fall under the command of Clarke, a manager whose tactics are inherently negative, unambitious and unsophisticated. His approach was fine when he was first appointed national boss, which saw him trying to steady the ship and dig the nation out of a hole. But our squad has evolved since then. Our players are better and are capable of playing a more attacking, possession-based style where they press opponents high up the pitch. They all do it with their clubs. Yet Clarke chooses to deploy them in a completely different fashion for Scotland, with Friday seeing him revert to the old system with five at the back. That formation was essentially created years ago to get Kieran Tierney and Andy Robertson into the same team. We should have moved beyond that now. Our squad is in a different place. We have guys like Lewis Ferguson and Ben Doak crying out for selection, two players who would make a difference in midfield and the final third. When Doak is fit again, he should be one of the first names on the team-sheet. Neither Robertson nor Tierney have shown the form to warrant being an automatic pick. Robertson looks like he could be replaced at Liverpool this summer, while Tierney's move back to Celtic from Arsenal is based more on romanticism than ambition. We should be past this constant clamouring to get them both in the team. The reality is that Scotland's squad has evolved and improved to the point where only one of them needs to play at left-back. The talent we have available further up the pitch outweighs the need to shoehorn Robertson and Tierney into the same team. That system is now to the detriment of the talent elsewhere in the squad. All in all, Scotland have four wins from their last 21 games. There have been 12 defeats in that time, 22 goals scored and 42 against. They will surely improve those numbers on Monday night against a Liechtenstein team who currently sit 205th in the world rankings. For context, this is a team who lost 3-1 to San Marino just a few months ago. Anything other than a Scotland win — and by a margin of a few goals — is unthinkable. Even that wouldn't do much to dispel the feeling that things have reached the point of no return under Clarke. Things have gone stale, the manager has been allowed to stay on too long, and the fans are rapidly losing faith. Any notion of Scotland being at the World Cup next year feels like a pipe dream.
