Why are rugby fans treated differently from football supporters?
The home of Scottish Rugby at Murrayfield and author Irvine Welsh, below left.
By Lizzie Healey
Edinburgh author Irvine Welsh has waded into the football v rugby row on social media in the wake of Scotland’s loss to Ireland.
The lifelong Hibs fan backed a post from another Twitter user which complained about the perceived double standards between the way football and rugby fans are treated in Scotland.
There’s also a perception among football fans that they’re treated harshly by the authorities on their way to matches compared with their rugby-supporting contemporaries.
The original tweet, from @hibeesfamily, read: “Rugby fans p****** & spewing all over Edinburgh tonight, giving free cans of lager before the game (that’s nice of Tennent’s), lifting up kilts exposing themselves to men, women and children… nothing to see it’s just a laugh says the bizzies [police] these folk are privileged now move on.”
Welsh then backed it up with: “If football fans behaved like that they would be arrested, jailed and put on the sex offenders list. Time the establishment stopped being chin stroking sociologists for the privileged and viscous social controllers for the working classes.”
The tweet has been retweeted 1,313 times and liked 4,808 times.