Ange Remains Silent On The VAR Scandal, But Inside Celtic Park All Must Be Seething.

The boss was perfectly calm last night when he was asked about the latest VAR disgrace, but this is a smart man who already knows how it goes here.

He knows that they would love him to launch a full-scale broadside against the refs.

They would hand him a touchline ban without the least hesitation.

Some people – Gerrard, in his first weeks in the job – can allege that the SFA has something against their club.

Others, who work at Celtic, cannot.

This smart man can also see, quite clearly, what is going on here. Decisions against us are piling up like a drug lord’s fortune. (That’s not a David Martindale reference, but it never hurts to remind people, you know?) He knows that there is a different rule-book when it comes to our club; he has to know that. He can smell what’s wafting in the air.

But where Ange cannot go there are others at our club who can easily raise the ruckus. The club itself could announce its continuing frustration via its public channels without even putting someone’s name on the bottom of the press release. It is becoming increasingly obvious that unless such a public statement is made that this will continue.

I recognise that Celtic is a more professional club than some others in this country, and in particular those who release statements like clockwork whenever they want to deflect.

We don’t do that and the club assures us that behind the scenes we do what we need to.

The trouble with that is that sometimes fans want – sometimes fans need – to see something more visible. And you know something? Sometimes the guy in the dugout needs to see that too.

He knows where the line is, and what the consequences are for crossing it and after a while a club which does not speak up and say the things he can’t is hanging the man out to dry.

Fans are increasingly sick of this, and nobody at Celtic Park should be underestimating that either.

We want to support our club, but it’s difficult enough to get people to shell out their hard earned money at a time like this without them having the very real belief that they are paying to watch a rigged game.

Fans just won’t stand for that.

How much of it should we have to stomach? Some of us have been screaming about the need for SFA reform since the full scale of the 2012 scandal was uncovered. If they were willing to do those things to protect the Ibrox operation, what else might they be willing to do?

We know the entire league was railroaded into the Sky deal of 2011 out of a need to protect Ibrox; it was the threat that was supposed to see the NewCo start life in the top flight.

Our club either did nothing or failed to accomplish its goals.

And then these directors slept at the wheel whilst the second Ibrox club financially doped its way to another title when we’d spent the better part of a decade screaming about the need to stop that.

What’s it going to take? The lead is nine points.

When does this board wake up? When it’s down to six? Four? Three? One? Or when Ibrox is crowing about an impossible “comeback”? You think it couldn’t happen. How much would you gamble on it?

It’s all very well asking the team to just keep winning in spite of it … but the bottom line is that this stuff shouldn’t be allowed to happen in the first place. So what if we can keep on pushing the boulder up the hill? Anyone who is comfortable putting the manager and these players in that position isn’t serving the best interests of Celtic.

Before VAR, the SFA and our club had the same fig-leaf to hide behind; officials sometimes make mistakes.

But what we’re witnessing is so blatant that it becomes impossible to ignore it. It wasn’t only one decision last night. There were two clear-cut penalties we didn’t get as well as the goal getting chopped off.

Even on its own its horrendous.

Placed in the context of what we have been watching for the last few months it’s indefensible.