§ Mr. Squireasked the Secretary of State for the Environment if he will make a statement about the outcome of the recent meeting of European Ministers for Sport in Rotterdam.
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§ Mr. MacfarlaneI represented the United Kingdom at the Council of Europe informal working group of Ministers with responsibility for sport which met in Rotterdam on Thursday 17 November 1983. Items on the agenda were violence associated with sport, the transfer system in professional soccer, European co-operation in the field of sport, preparation for next year's conference of European Ministers with responsibility for sport, and exclusive contracts for sportsmen and women.
For the United Kingdom and many other delegations, the item on violence associated with sport was the most important. The working group considered a draft recommendation, prepared by an official working party chaired by the United Kingdom, on the reduction of spectator violence particularly at football matches. The draft recommendation lists the precautions which governments, public and football authorities should take to reduce spectator violence.
The meeting welcomed the draft recommendation, acknowledging that soccer spectator violence is a problem in many European countries, not just in the United Kingdom. The working group recommended formal adoption by the Council of Europe of the proposals (subject to any necessary drafting changes to accommodate national legal and administrative conditions) and agreed immediately to seek to implement the proposals in their own countries, and for international matches. I am placing in the library a copy of the declaration (MSL-GT 10(83)DR1) made at the meeting, which was closely based on a draft which I had prepared.
I regard this as an extremely satisfactory outcome of the initiative which I launched at the last meeting of the Ministers' informal working group in Paris in January this year. I shall urge my colleagues to do their best to ensure that the proposals are implemented at matches involving British clubs. They are essentially similar to those recommended by the European Union of Football Associations (UEFA) and already followed by United Kingdom clubs involved in international competitions.
Conclusions satisfactory to the United Kingdom were reached on all agenda other items.