Supporting England's opponents is un-Christian, priest tells Scots

BY WILL GORE
SCOTTISH FOOTBALL fans who want England to lose at the World Cup have been shown the red card by a senior Catholic priest.
Fr Willie McFadden, the rector of Scotus College. Scotland's largest seminary, in Bearsden. near Glasgow, has said that members of the Tartan Army Scotland's famously raucous band of supporters should examine their consciences before pledging allegiance to England's first-round opponents: Paraguay. Trinidad and Tobago and Sweden.
Fr McFadden said "If a Scot has an automatic negative reaction to supporting England, they would have to question where that feeling is coming from. As Christians, we are called to have positive relationships with others who may be different from us. If we have an automatic anti' relationship with someone simply because they are English, that is antiChristian."
Fr McFadden's comments come on the back of a wave of anti-English sentiment north of the border, with several high-profile Scottish figures backing England's opponents in an attempt to win popular support from their fellow countrymen.
Scottish tennis star Andy Murray, who crashed out of the French Open last week, said that he would "support whoever England were playing against". He even promised to wear a Paraguay shirt during his first match at Wimbledon.
Scotland's first minister Jack McConnell also caused controversy by saying he would back the "underdogs" rather than the "auld enemy".
Mr McConnell said: "Football is a sport, people should be relaxed about this. Some will back England, some will not. I'm in the second camp, I'm doing that because I'll enjoy the small teams giving the big teams a beating from time to time over the course of the next month."
But not all Scots agree. Andy Brown. a Scottish fund manager working in London, described Mr McConnefi's ,attitude as "disappointing" .
He said "I think it is pathetic that every Scot is not supporting England in the World Cup.
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