When Barry Ferguson Says Celtic Have A Case, When Does Our Club Complain About VAR?

Barry Ferguson is no friend of our club. We all know that. His biases are so clear and open that it would be embarrassing for anyone to argue that he will ever be considered amongst our defenders. But he has looked at the penalty incident from the end of the game yesterday and is unequivocal in his response; it’s a stonewall spot kick.

It was one of two incidents in the game which demands to be explained, the other being the decision not to penalise a Killie player for the elbow in the face which Greg Taylor went off for. In the time between his leaving the pitch and coming back on they scored their goal. It stands to reasons that this was a game-changing incident and if you look at it, there’s no doubt that it was foul which VAR should have confirmed was a red card.

As I said, Ferguson has watched the penalty and thinks the decision is a shocker. We all know that it is. We all know it wasn’t the only one. We all know that it will not be the last. When Derek McInnes was bumping his gums to the media in the days before the game it was obvious, he was marking the cards of the officials. It was folly not to do the same.

Our club should have spoke out before the match. That’s not hindsight; a lot of us made it clear. But better late than never, right? Unfortunately, we are opting for never.

This club just hates to rock the boat doesn’t it?

It just hates to fight properly even when it’s glaringly obvious that things are bad and getting worse. That wasn’t one official yesterday who missed that decision, and with only a split second to decide. That was the ref, the linesman and the VAR officials with all the benefits they had of the second look and the slow-motion replay.

Everybody knows that was a penalty. So when it’s not given what do you say? That the officials had a bad day at the office? That’s some hell of a bad day when the technology is there to just about do the work for you.

That’s not an honest mistake, when you can turn on the monitor, see the guy never won the ball and that even the loosest interpretation of the rules should see a penalty given and Celtic given a chance to equalise in the last minute.

I said earlier that I’m glad we didn’t have anything to sugarcoat what was a very, very bad afternoon for us in terms of our performance. But losing is one thing. Cheating is another. We’ll find out how much our club cares about the losing part over the next ten days. But the cheating bit … you want them to worry about that, to take that seriously …

And ours just don’t, and you run out of patience for this because this is how people lose their jobs, it’s how clubs spin into crisis, it’s how outstanding bosses see their reputations damaged … and we do nothing about that even when the victims are us.

It makes you wonder who this board really represents.

Are they interested in fighting for Celtic, or do these folks just want an easy life and their soft seats in the stands?

There was a guy there yesterday, in John Reid, who would have tore strips off the walls if he was still in the chairman’s seat, and I can barely bring myself to imagine what Fergus would have done.

The men in charge now are pygmies compared to those lions.

What that we had such leadership today.

We are getting walked all over, and pissed upon.