The Clean Up Scotland Campaign - Scotland’s national anti-litter campaign - has been boosted by the Scottish Football Association (Scottish FA) declaring its endorsement of the Campaign’s objectives. Clean Up Scotland is run by Keep Scotland Beautiful, Scotland’s environment charity and is the national focus for action against the blight of litter in Scotland.

Already over 400,000 individuals have pledged to act, leading to one of the largest ever volunteer programmes, with litter-picks and clean-ups all over Scotland. In addition, the Campaign seeks to highlight the huge environmental, social and economic cost of litter, and is working to change behaviour to make dropping litter as socially unacceptable tomorrow as drink driving is today.

The Scottish FA has declared its formal backing for the campaign, in recognising the impact of litter and dog fouling. At local club football level this affects games every week as a few careless people render playing fields unusable. More broadly, the Scottish FA is joining other major sporting bodies and events, including the RFU, Ryder Cup and Commonwealth Games, in recognising that changing public attitudes to litter around sporting events will have a significant impact on the communities in which they are held.

The Scottish FA is sending a clear message that football litter needs kicked out of the game. The endorsement will be highlighted in the run up to the international matches this month.

Declaring the Scottish FA’s support, Campbell Ogilvie, the President of the Scottish Football Association said:

"We are delighted to help support Keep Scotland Beautiful and their Clean Up Scotland campaign. We are fortunate to live in a land rich in natural beauty, but we have a responsibility to ensure that we all do our bit to preserve our surroundings.

"Even with small steps such as picking up litter and putting it in a bin, we can make sure that future generations can enjoy our surroundings and our country's unspoilt beauty."

Derek Robertson, Chief Executive at Keep Scotland Beautiful said:

“The astounding success of our Clean Up Scotland Campaign so far has seen a massive number of people step forward and declare their willingness to do their bit to clean up unwanted litter and improve local environments. That’s why it is so important to have the major sporting bodies like the Scottish FA playing their part in endorsing the campaign.

“All too often litter and dog fouling on public playing fields stops play. At a national level a small number of careless fans leave the streets surrounding stadiums looking less than desirable. We’re grateful for the Scottish FA’s support in changing that behaviour and making sure that the beautiful game lives up to its name. Football fans can make Scotland the cleanest country in Europe.”

The Scottish FA will be encouraging supporters to take the Clean Up Scotland pledge - a pledge to change our personal attitudes to litter. Fans can show their support for the campaign by signing the Clean Up Scotland pledge at: www.keepscotlandbeautiful.org/pledge - supporters can also register to get involved in cleaning up their community at: www.keepscotlandbeautiful.org/cleanupscotland.