Barring an injury, Scott Brown will line up for Celtic at Hampden.
He should.
The decision to red-card him was scandalous.
I will go into the decision itself, and the referee, in an article tomorrow but for tonight I’m going to comment on something else.
Some of the media outlets have clearly been given “the line” to take on this issue.
The intent is to somehow shame us, to paint any appeal as being some kind of underhanded strategy to take advantage of the timing. Doubtless, Caixinha will be asked about it, and I am willing to bet right now that they ask him if he would have accepted the ban.
And I’ll tell you the answer; not in a million years would he, and if he says otherwise I will have no issue with coming on this site and calling him a liar. There is not a manager out there who would not use the timing of this to get the player into a cup semi-final squad.
Not one. Not anywhere.
Shame on any of the hacks who suggest otherwise.
The decision reeked.
The referee had the card out of his pocket before you could say Speedy Gonzalez. He couldn’t wait. The penalty kick was bad enough; this was a late chance to rule Brown out of the next two games. It was a thoroughly corrupt decision, and any effort we make to mitigate the damage of it short of a military blockade of Hampden wouldn’t, in my view, be an over-reaction. When you are faced with naked bias, how should you act?
That aside, even if were a wholly legitimate red card and not somebody’s wet dream, I’ve seen those appealed before to give players a chance. If memory serves me, Boughera did it, and notoriously scored in a title winning game from which he should have been banned.
The media raised no such issue or suggested that the club was somehow flaunting the rules.
You know why?
He did it within the rules.
What are we, mugs?
Should we operate by a different set of rules than everyone else?
Is this how they’re going to handicap us going forward, by saying we’re only allowed the protection of certain parts of the rulebook?
Hey, if the club lodges an appeal the player gets the benefit of the doubt; that’s how it works. That’s how it’s supposed to work. What were we meant to do? Appeal after the fact? Cause they’d replay the game for us, right?
Honestly, the media and the Sevco horde can moan their wee faces off all through the course of the week.
They can try to guilt us, shame us, they can talk about how it cheapens us as they please; I’ll feel very “cheapened” if Scott Brown scores a 30 yard howitzer on Sunday and puts us in the cup final. For about six seconds. After I stop celebrating. About four days later.
And only then because I’ll remember I didn’t tip the taxi driver.
They can talk about how it subverts the “intent” of the rules, how it “takes advantage of the system”, how it makes Scottish football “look like a laughing stock” until their brains burst with the savage unfairness of it all … and I will snigger through the lot of it, at the brazen hypocrisy of daring to quote rules and regulations and fair play at our club.
How dare they?
How dare any of them?
Our club follows that rulebook … our club respects that’s rulebook … and that’s why we’re entitled to the protections afforded us in it.
This would be one of them.