Leeds United issue statement on Solomon chant

Transcript

00:00There is a statement going out from Leeds United this afternoon.

00:09It relates to the Manor Solomon chant, which I'm sure many of you will have heard.

00:14Leeds have issued a statement which reads, Leeds United again condemn the football chant

00:19containing an anti-Palestine lyric aimed at Manor Solomon, having already done so through

00:24comments to local and national media outlets in December.

00:27Hate crime and discriminatory language or chanting is not acceptable at Leeds United

00:31and the club has a zero-tolerance policy towards discrimination abuse of all kinds.

00:37The club has received a large number of complaints from Leeds United supporters regarding the

00:41chant and had hoped the initial strategy of condemning it through the media and working

00:45with supporter groups would prevent this from happening in the future, but it has sadly

00:49become more prominent in recent matches, including at Elland Road.

00:54After monitoring the situation at recent home games, the origins of the chant at Elland

00:57Road appear to come from the Norman Hunter South stand, particularly in blocks FA5, FA6,

01:03SS5, SS6.

01:06And the statement goes on to say if you do hear discriminatory language being used at

01:12games to use the text service for the matchday incident text service to report those incidents.

01:20I think there's been an awful lot of complaints from various sections of the fan base about

01:26this chant in particular.

01:28Leeds United have felt it appropriate to take this action and to say that they will ban

01:31fans who are singing it.

01:35You might get the odd person who says, well, what about the Jimmy Savile chants?

01:39And you know what, that is something that needs to be addressed and Leeds behind the

01:43scenes are lobbying for that to be classified as a tragedy chant, which it always, always

01:48should have been.

01:49I think the sooner the action is taken on that, the better as well.

01:52You don't want to hear any of those things sung at football games.

01:56You don't want to have people having to explain to young children what certain chants are

02:00about when the subject matter is so horrific.

02:04And the sooner that Elland Road doesn't hear the Solomon chant or the Savile chant, the

02:10better.

02:11I think we can all agree that it's just, it's just in bad taste, just poor taste.

02:17And it's not needed.

02:19People get very precious about their chants and they talk about censorship or free speech

02:24or taking banter out of football.

02:26There are a million and one things that you can sing at a football game and that Leeds

02:30fans do sing that are funny and sometimes a bit spiteful and they don't make light of

02:40a horrific situation.