As Celtic continues to wait to find out what the extent of the damage is to Jeremie Frimpong after yesterday’s horrendous and vicious challenge, the swelling noise against Devante Cole continues to grow, with only his manager really standing up for him at this point.
The press has done its usual, and rolled out every retired official they can find to look over the incident; this time the results are stunningly in our favour.
When the Scottish tabloids can’t find a single ex-referee to tell us why that was only a yellow card, it once again strengthens the case in favour of being able to ask the guy who awarded it what his excuse is.
The protective bubble around referees is a huge problem for Scottish football, encouraging a lack of transparency which feeds conspiracy theories and spreads disillusionment about the general governance of the game.
The fact refs are not punished for such mind-bending mistakes is another big problem; it means there’s no incentive to drive up standards.
Celtic has allowed this issue to go unresolved, as we have with so much else.
This is a serious issue, and one we’ve given no commitment to resolving. Dallas and others can make decisions which baffle observers, but they can’t be asked to explain them. When people raise complaints it’s those people who are hauled before the panels and charged.
So we sit and wait. We wait for news of how Frimpong is, and how long he might be out for, and in the meantime not one observer, except for Stephen Robinson, believes that it was anything other than a red.
We know why he’s in denial, but we’ll never get an explanation for why Andrew Dallas didn’t send off the player immediately.
It’s hard to escape the conclusion that somehow we’re alright with things this way.
Even as the backlash against that tackle rises, our silence goes on.
Nobody really believes that this was a mere yellow card; I’d be surprised if Robinson himself thought so.
We’ll never know what Dallas thinks … because nobody is allowed to ask him.
That is a scandal, and that’s something that has to change.
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