The first half at Ibrox today has summed up how ridiculous officiating, and our system of officiating, works in this country.
The opening goal for the home side was scored by none other than John Lundstram, who got a straight red last week and arguably deserved it, shortly after James Sands should have seen red for wrestling a player to the ground when already on a yellow.
The whole debate over refereeing in the last week has been built on an entirely fictitious premise, all of it predicated on the idea that the Ibrox club are hard done by. If you accept that the Lundstram decision was wrong – I would debate that – then fair enough. But it was the only decision which went against them which was.
Morelos’ red card is so stonewall that any ref would have shown him the card. Their club didn’t even dispute it or appeal against it; indeed, the manager slammed him for it and dropped him from the game in midweek. That decision vindicates the sending off.
In all the back and forth over the refereeing performance there has been very little focus on the shocker of a decision not to award Hibs a penalty, and few are looking terribly hard at the one that Ibrox got at the other end.
So the whole week of sound and fury out of Ibrox is based on the Lundstram decision alone, and that was reversed on appeal, as it was always going to be with the smokescreen of the Doyle Hayes tackle and the whole of the press corps screaming to distract from the essential point of the decision.
It was a high challenge, from behind, which wasn’t remotely about winning the ball.
I’ve seen red cards given for that without all this bitching.
But the noise over it accomplished the goal it was supposed to; the ref today didn’t dare send off Sands, and so I expect that any decision in the immediate future of a similar nature will be hesitated over and ultimately bottled out of.
That was the plan. That was the intention. And for Ibrox, today shows that it was Mission: Accomplished.
They got off with that today because they’ve spent the past week castigating an official who just happens to work in a Catholic school … but others got the message regardless in the way the hacks turned on the guy.
We all talk about consistency; this, really, is the only consistency there is when it comes to Scottish football refereeing.
Decisions which go Celtic’s way are subjected to the most intense scrutiny and the only ones that match it are those against Sevco.
i don’t think lundstum’s(lungestrum ?) offence last week was a red….it’s was not as bad as the foul committed on himself earlier…it wasn’t violent play…he simply tripped up boyle by clipping his upper shin…
i seem to remember broonie having a red rescinded a couple of years back, for a worse foul, allowing him to play in an upcoming fixture…
swings and roundabouts….
i’ve been watching the ‘tic for a long, long time and have never bought into the conspiracy theory that “they are out to get us….”
think it’s just incompetence….no more.
HH
Lundstram’s challenge was a red. That it was reduced to a yellow means nothing, as the appeals panel are made up of suits who haven’t read the laws of the game front cover, never mind the pages within. They exist purely to feed the media narrative that the ref “got it wrong.”
Note nobody ever questions if the panel got it wrong….
I’ve been over and over that decision with fellow refs of Fifa, UEFA listing all the way down to grades 3 and 5 here (none of them Scottish or even interested in Scottish football) and every one of them agrees red was entirely justified for a cynical high lunge like that. They also thought the penalty that was given was justifiable, if soft.
But James is right. This hue and cry was never really about the Lundstram Red… They knew they’d win the appeal, of course. That’s the system. This was about making sure they got away with the next red card offence. Which was definitely Sands today.
It will be interesting to see if Sands is offered a suspension for the RC he should have been shown. The offence he got away with was worth a straight red. A deliberate cynical foul to deny a goal scoring opportunity with no attempt to play the ball. Red card all day every day. Over to you SFA. Don’t hold your breath.
Who were the corrupt officials what’s the point if the rules of association football do not apply to sevco the score at that moment 0-0 sands already on yellow total absolute corruption not incompetence just blainted cheating FACT
Bet the huns that do the daily ranger phone in don’t mention this travesty,they will want this ref every week
What can we do about it? Fuck all we live in a bigoted rotten to the core disgusting little country,what other civilised nation apart from jockland and Norn Irn would allow those marches , Scotland is a backward stupid little country and we pretend we’re civilised ,get to fuck
Where is the “root and branch” changes in Scottish refereeing?
As a society change is seen in every walk of life and it’s a long time coming.
I’ll answer my own question.
A bbc panel commenting on the recent commongreed games consisted of a black man and a black lesbian, a dwarf, a white lesbian and a straight.
Great to see, changing days but god forbid you put an Irish catholic on that very same panel.
And they think there’s a conspiracy against them it’s laughable…what da fuck is our board doing about this…its time to speak up..
Yellow fuckers..it eats me up the way that the club gets treated…that board needs to get their heads outa the sand..that other shower are a bigoted sectarian bunch of hypocrites…it must’ve been the way they reared..thank God I’m not like that hh