Some Of The Decisions Against Celtic Were Shocking And One Man Should Be Highlighted.
HAMPDEN
In my article on VAR this morning I said that one of the things most wrong with the debate around the game at the moment is the way the technology is being blamed for those who are the centre of it. This is something I want to rectify in this piece.
This morning I named the VAR official responsible for the decision at the Motherwell game against the Ibrox side, which every pundit and commentator agrees is a penalty kick, which of course wasn’t given. The guy’s name? Greg Aitken.
Who is Greg Aitken? Well, the Twitterati seem to know him fairly well. These are a couple of ancient posts about him, and as you’ll see he’s already been “outed.”
The other, of course, is Andrew Dallas, son of Hugh Dallas the sectarian bigot who was drummed out of the SFA for sharing an anti-Catholic email.
Joe’s piece contains a link to an interesting photograph of Greg Aitken and Ally McCoist; you’ll notice McCoist has on the Ibrox club tie.
Now, there are probably photos like that all over the place of various officials talking to various manages, but as Joe points out, that particular picture comes from Aitken’s own Facebook page … which means he thinks it’s a special one.
So, yesterday he denied Motherwell a penalty against the Ibrox club which every person who has looked at the incident knows was a spot-kick, and there he was today, at Dens Park, where his interpretation of “obstruction” in the penalty area saw Cameron Carter Vickers man-handled and held, jersey included, on more than a few occasions and not just by one player but a couple of times by two including the keeper.
Those aren’t close decisions. That is a scandal.
This guy is one for the watching. Celtic should be demanding to know how this guy can even get games involving us when his allegiances are so well known that the fans across the city openly boast about them and plaster them all over social media.
His non-scrutiny of those situations was shocking today, and we should be beyond shocking on this side of the city with some of the calls that go against us. The only thing worse is the lack of concern our own club seems to show for this stuff, and their total silence on it. That silence will have dire consequences one day and we all know it will … but still we do nothing.
This wasn’t – as the media is suggesting – one contentious incident today, and nor should they be getting away with the spurious claim that Taylor should have been penalised for handball.
There were repeated instances inside the Dundee box of the exact same behaviour; arms around Vickers, his shirt being pulled, the goalkeeper and the defender physically holding him so he can’t jump for the ball … you don’t even need the Ibrox Rules in your hands to see how a penalty could, and should, have been given in at least one of those instances.
This was not “VAR.” This is not something to be blamed on “the technology.”
The SFA promoted two refs to full-time duties on this and this guy is responsible for two howlers in the space of two days and both of them, coincidently, have benefited the Ibrox club … so you tell me what it’s going to take for us to speak up or speak out.
Because we’re rolling dice on a titled table. We’re watching a rigged game right now, and it gets more obvious with every week that passes. If we don’t, as a club, do something about this it’s us who are going to keep getting done until something breaks.