Doncaster: Strict liability doesn’t work anywhere

The conduct of supporters in Scottish football was brought into sharp focus this season as a number of serious incidents saw the game make headlines for all the wrong reasons.

Rangers captain James Tavernier was confronted by a fan at Easter Road just days after a bottle was thrown at Scott Sinclair.

Neil Lennon and Kris Boyd were both hit by coins thrown from the stands, while Steve Clarke and Derek McInnes were vocal in their condemnation of sectarian singing.

SPFL clubs have previously voted against the implementation of strict liability and Doncaster believes the current framework is fit for purpose.

Doncaster said: “There’s a misconception about strict liability.

“Some see it as the answer to unacceptable conduct. If you look at the experience that Uefa has with European competitions, it’s clear that strict liability doesn’t work.

“You can end up punishing the innocent home clubs and if you start to make away clubs responsible of their fans, very quickly you will see away clubs stopping selling tickets to the away fans, putting greater onus on often smaller home clubs. I’ve never seen any examples of it working anywhere throughout the world.

“They (the SPFL clubs) do take responsibility. We very much welcome the actions that have been taken by various clubs this year. They have identified individuals using CCTV, and I think enhanced CCTV will be very much part of the future.

“I think you get unacceptable conduct across Europe. It’s not something unique to Scotland by any means. What is important is the clubs do everything they reasonably can to prevent incidents of unacceptable conduct from occurring. They deal with them appropriately in the moment and following the match they take action.

“It’s important to stress it only happens in the minority of matches and it’s a very small minority who engage in this behaviour.”