MP'S DEMAND BAN ON FOOTBALL'S VIDEO NASTIES

27-10-2006

West Midlands MP's have promised action in parliament next week to halt the sale of violent football hooligan videos on ebay. The trade in “punch-up porn” was revealed last night in The Stirrer's weekly column for the Birmingham Mail.

Khalid Mahmood, Labour MP for Perry Barr, will table a Commons motion on Monday demanding that the internet auction site bans the 35 DVD sellers who are currently exploiting their viewers' taste for aggro.

Among the “action” featured is a major clash involving around 70 Villa and Baggies fans a couple of years ago outside the Uplands pub in Handsworth.

There's also footage of other scraps involving Wolves supporters and Blues' Zulu Army.

Trailers promise “toe to toe fights” and “excellent footage” of “mayhem”. There are concerns that the circulation of these films could be used to inflame local rivalries and stir up more trouble in future.

Some of the sellers are based abroad, but one is in Small Heath, and another from Birmingham takes his name from West Brom's Section 5 hooligan squad.

Sion Simon, the Labour MP for Erdington, was astonished that a legitimate firm like ebay could be making its profits in this way. He said: “It's disgusting and disgraceful. If it's not illegal, it should be.”

Black Country MP's John Spellar (Warley) and Tom Watson (West Bromwich East) have also said they'll back Mahmood's Early Day Motion being tabled next week, calling for the sale of the DVD's to be withdrawn.

So far, ebay have refused to comment.