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Celtic Fans Should Be Watching Collum’s Motherwell-Hibs Display In Disbelief.

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As I write this, Motherwell’s game against Hibs in the Scottish Cup has just kicked off. And even as I was doing the first paragraph, on an early incident in the game, there is a moment which sort of shoves aside the point I was trying to make whilst introducing another.

Let’s take them one at a time.

No sooner had this match started than Willie Collum was flashing the red card at a Motherwell player. The TV commentators may be divided on whether it merited the straight sending off, but I am in no doubt that it did.

We’ve seen Motherwell’s thuggish behaviour this season, and seen refs fail to punish it severely enough.

It was good to see that red come out.

But just moments later – both incidents within the first six minutes of the game – an almost identical challenge from another Motherwell player results in a mere yellow.

There is no consistency to that sort of decision making at all.

Nobody will be able to explain to us why one decision was punished with the ultimate sanction and the other was not.

Celtic fans should be watching this aghast.

Collum, in the first instance, appeared to show that refs do know where the line is, it’s just that in certain circumstances they choose not to draw that line and impose the maximum penalty.

Then a few minutes later we’re wondering again.

I’ll tell you this, if Collum thinks there is a discernible difference between that first challenge and the second then that shows you the state of Scottish refereeing pretty clearly. It is an absolute mess.

VAR, in theory, would have made those decisions today easier, but in fact the ref had a good view of both and in one he’s shown a red and in the other a yellow.

So you tell me; as a Celtic fan, how is technology supposed to change that?

A referee has been confronted by two identical incidents and has made wildly divergent calls.

I know only that none of them would have been a red had a Celtic player been the victim or a player from Ibrox the perpetrator.

Beyond that, I have no idea at all.

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  • Charles says:

    Not the quickest red by a Scottish ref btw. Brother John Beaton showed one in an international last year after less than 30 secs. Mugabe has been at this all season and has escaped most times.

  • Damian says:

    Why would Celtic fans in particular have an interest in this, as opposed to fans of Scottish football? The actual argument you make demonstrates, or at least provides anecdotal evidence for, the argument that the standard of refereeing just isn’t very good. We’ve had bad decisions go against us, in our last game we had bad decisions go in our favour (decisions made by a referee who is almost certainly a Rangers fan). The standard isn’t good. It’s as likely to be not good in games involving neither Celtic or Rangers, and the only thing anyone needs to do to see this is occasionally watch a game involving neither of those teams. I’d speculate that a meagre minority of Celtic fans do that with any regularity whatsoever (highlights don’t really count for this).

    • Seppington says:

      Considering those who edit the highlights regularly omit contentious decisions regarding a particular klub (goodness knows why???) it’s obvious they are useless as an evaluation tool.
      Whether it’s bias against Celtic/in favour of Sevco, or just incompetence, this has been going on for far too long. Refereeing in Scotland needs root-and-branch clearout and reorganisation, beginning with the end of such nonsense as “The Lanarkshire Referees Association”…

    • Brian says:

      Let’s stop kidding ourselves on that var will change anything! We just seen Kent dive in a European game and var still gave a penalty, our game will be no different with var.

  • Finbar muldoon says:

    Saw this wee dick give penalty to huns v Celts. When his back was turned to incident. HH

  • Seppington says:

    How would he know if he wasn’t looking?

    • Damian says:

      There are another three officials. Very often we wonder why the linesman hasn’t spotted something. But, when it all boils down, if a foul was committed in the box, then it’s a penalty. End of. And if the decision was the correct decision – whether made by a teacher of RE at a Lanarkshire Catholic school or by a teacher of PE at a Glasgow non-denominational school – then there is literally no point fixating on how the decision was made. The ref has an earpiece, and can hear perspectives from three colleagues.

  • Roonsa says:

    The commentator just said “what a shite that is for Shaun Maloney”.

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