So today we got a decision from a ref. A stand-in ref. That ought to be the killing blow for that poor sod’s career. The Motherwell manager is raging. He says we get preferential treatment. I am already bored by it. Tomorrow I’ll do a larger piece on this, but notice that tonight there’s no outcry in the media over an accusation of refereeing bias.
Celtic aren’t allowed to get decisions, contentious or otherwise. I thought, by the way, it was a penalty. We were lucky it wasn’t given against us. The ref has ruled it as non-intentional but I have seen them given plenty of times before and on another day it would have been. But this season I can remember a couple that haven’t gone our way.
Don’t let anyone use this to tell you that refs are even handed in their mistakes. Even as the media wants to focus on this, they aren’t focussed on a straight red challenge which Aribo made or the way Robbie Neilson is screaming about the decision he was sent to the stand for protesting, one of the most blatant red cards you’ll ever see unless you’re a Grade One official in Scotland.
The headlines tomorrow will be about the decision Motherwell failed to get, in a game they weren’t in, in a game where we had total control. None of that will matter. The standard of refereeing in this country is the absolute pits, and we’ve said it long enough and I’m saying it again tonight and admitting that today we got one in our favour.
But you dare to push this to its logical conclusion – that we need massive reform of refs – and these same managers will crawl back into the long grass. Ask the Motherwell manager tonight if he’s saying refs are biased and he’ll probably mumble about “influenced” by the size of the big clubs, which to me is the same thing in a different suit.
But ask if them if they’d support real reform and see how they run.
For tomorrow, the story will be about lucky Celtic are and how the system favours us. Honest to God, we’ve been arguing about refereeing for weeks now and none of the issues we’ve tried to highlight will get a fraction of that which this single decision gets.
It deserves to, by the way, but then they all did.
Boli’s mishap is perfect deflection for the Balgohan(Sevco player) foul on the Hearts lad. Stonewall push and stonewall pen. I say this in the context of, if it was our Bhoy we want pen, by highlighting Boli they have their narative. All calls go in the “OF” favour. This is the rod to beat us with, a rod made by our own board.
IMHO, Boli was pulling his arm away but had no time to do it. Hey ho, here we go, the merry-go-round is in full swing now.
Everyone seems to be missing the fact that the throw-in just prior to the boli handball was actually a foul throw since the motherwell player was on the park when he threw it so had var been in place it still wouldn’t have been a pen since they should have picked that up
If we are going to look at decisions from yesterday’s game, there was yet another bad challenge on a Celtic player (Tom Rogic) yesterday that went unpunished. We didn’t even get a foul for it. Tam Boyd said himself “another free hit on a Celtic player”. If the media want to moan about refs then fine. Yes it was a penalty. We would most likely still have won the game at a trot even if they had scored it. So we were not lucky yesterday. We were all over that mob for 90 minutes. What we should actually be moaning about is lack of protection for Celtic players as the ref had a clear view of the challenge on Rogic yesterday. In light of the Porteous decision a couple of weeks ago, why is there no consistency? Especially when Aribo apparently got away with one yesterday at the same ground? That’s the talking point. Not a missed handball, unless you want to talk about VAR and, as a pissed off Celtic fan, I am ALL for that. Bring it on.
Celtic get a wrong decision from the ref big deal the amount of decisions we have had against us over the years by honest mistakes from refs? Well pay back time so the media will be at it for next few days going on about the penalty that was not given likley a police investigation will asked for lovely.
I saw a clip of the indecent from behind the goal line. It looked like the Motherwell player handled the ball immediately before Boli did. So foul to Celtic denied ?
It was a clear as day penalty all day long (if you don’t include the foul play in the build up) said the media.
The exposed rankers supporting panellist on Sportscene, McFuddy said it was and so did the anger etched all over his sold out soul. HH