Last Night’s Penalty At Ibrox Proves What Celtic Fans Know About This “Anomaly” Guff.

It is not often that an officiating decision makes me laugh out loud, except when it is one so unbelievable, for the club across the city, that it really doesn’t leave you any choice except to scream.

But last night I did laugh at a penalty decision and it was at Ibrox of all places.

I laughed in part in surprise, because it went against them.

And I laughed because it wasn’t as big a surprise as it might have been. It would certainly have come as a greater shock had it been in a Scottish game. That’s why I laughed too at the disbelieving look on the faces of their players, who are simply not used to be refereed according to the same rules and regulations as everybody else.

That was a landmark moment last night, the latest in a list of penalties which have been awarded against them in Europe, and all the while their run of not conceding any in league business continues and looks set to stretch far into the future. How can it be that they get spot kicks given against them in Europe regularly, and in Scotland they just don’t?

Another anomaly? Good God, there are a lot of anomalies surrounding that club, aren’t there?

That we had to endure the pathetic spectacle of John Beaton, just last week, calling it just that, and trying to stop us from viewing this all in context, only adds to the unreality of it.

Quite how they have the balls to attempt that defence now I do not know.

I find it especially rich that the penalty was given for a handball. No wonder their players were stunned. Their central defender is only footballer in Scotland who must have been waiting for a call from the national netball team. I swear to God, somewhere in some SFA office there has to be a bona-fide Conor Goldson version of the rulebook.

But not in Europe. His team doesn’t get away with it there, they are punished just like everyone else. And that was funny because of Beaton’s casual dismissal of this as an issue, it’s funny because this shows how abnormal their run in Scotland is, and it’s funny because their players were obviously so used to not conceding them that they forgot where they were playing.

And it’s funny because it does, of course, change the argument for us and the way in which it is being had.

Their European record of conceding penalties hasn’t had enough attention, and it should be if we’re really going to move this discussion towards one about the context … that’s important, and it needs to be highlighted by every single of us with a voice.