Community and political leaders have denounced the behaviour of soccer fans who booed during a minute's silence for the late David Ervine.
The booing came from some Cliftonville supporters who had travelled from mainly nationalist north Belfast for the game against Mr Ervine's local club Glentoran at the Oval ground in his native east Belfast.
Mr Ervine attended a Glentoran game at the Oval last Saturday, hours before he took seriously ill with a heart attack and a stroke. He died on Monday.
Jim Rodgers, a member of the Glentoran board, said "most people were shocked because the vast majority of people in the stadium observed it without any problem".
Phone-in programmes on local radio were inundated yesterday with outraged callers.
Belfast City Council is to hold a special meeting tomorrow in advance of the funeral to pay tribute to Mr Ervine, who had represented the Pottinger area since 1997.
The SDLP Lord Mayor Pat McCarthy said the special meeting would allow members the opportunity to pay tribute to the Progressive Unionist leader.
Security Minister Paul Goggins led tributes to Mr Ervine in the House of Commons yesterday at the start of Northern Ireland question time. Mr Goggins confirmed that he and Secretary of State Peter Hain will be attending Mr Ervine's funeral in Belfast tomorrow.
Former Northern secretary Paul Murphy was among the first to sign an early day motion tabled by SDLP leader Mark Durkan noting with sadness Mr Ervine's untimely death.
Mr Durkan's motion offers condolences to Mrs Jeanette Ervine and the couple's sons Mark and Owen and "values his pivotal role in the peace process and positive contribution to the Good Friday agreement".
The motion also respects Mr Ervine's change from a paramilitary past and "esteems the worth, warmth and wit of his articulate and often dogged contribution to democratic debate; recognises how widely expressed and deeply felt the tributes to his distinct impact on Northern Ireland politics have been; and hopes that these reflect not only the high regard which he earned but also some evidence of a transformed political outlook for Northern Ireland which he helped to foster".
Gusty Spence, the former UVF paramilitary, last night said the pressures of the peace process had contributed to the death of Mr Ervine. "David Ervine cared, and David Ervine's caring killed him," he told UTV. "I believe that all that pressure, at 53 years of age, was responsible for his passing."
He said the PUP had to continue with its work, arguing for a political alternative to conflict.