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.
Well, what if on Saturday,
– we have a player sent off for a soft, or even an imagined, foul
– they get a soft / imagined TavPen, maybe to win the game
– we have a stonewaller penalty ignored?
If sevco was to win on Saturday in highly ‘dubious’ circumstances,
then our support will naturally, be raging in frustration.
And where should that outrage be directed?
At the match officials – or at our very own Board?
Our Board can make sarcastic, cheating-related comments at the AGM.
but CHOOSE to remain mute about formally calling out the industrial scale
cheating on behalf of sevco.
Again.
Our Board deserves EVERYTHING coming its way!
If not on Saturday, the Board’s reckoning is due sooner, rather than later. 🙁
the board are terrified of upsetting their business partners, that has been evident for many years and unfortunately will continue for many more years.
From the first week it was introduced it has been shameful the handball at tynecastle not being checked was the worst of the lot and it has been a disgrace ever since.
The World Club Cup Final demonstrated that VAR can work efficiently and quickly under the control of neutral officials.
Agreed , every time sky , bbc if it looks like a penalty to Celtic , there always seems to be some foul by a Celtic player before the incident , every time astonishingl
Yes its pathetic, the chain of causation,is succinctly in legal terms, a theoretical series of events that has lead to some untoward occurence/act that breaches the laws of the land, it is not however imbued with an inexhaustible timeline wherein an infinite set of occurences can be used in mitigation to prove an obviously misleading or false conclusion that could provide a defence against any accusation made against it. VAR is being used in just this way by corrupt officials that will go as far as is required to obtain their overall objective which is to favour one clubs aspirations nomatter how spurious or remote their justification for their decisions may be. This is a scandalous state of affairs and the whole of scottish football is being cheated here from ordinary punters betting on fixed odds coupons to clubs themselves being denied prize monies relative to league placings, players themselves are denied win bonuses and managers themselves being sacked off the back of ridiculous decisions given against their teams. Why is this not being called out by Celtic football club ? Why if they are raising these issues in the background, are the answers(if any are given) not being made public ? Transparancy is essential between clubs and their fans and equally between officialdom and the clubs. Aitken and Dallas et al,should be compelled to profess their alliegences and recuse themselves from officiating at any further games that they have vested interests in. Furthermore the more these decisions are tolerated without any apparent heavyweight criticisms being made against them the more we have to listen to the slabbering pish that such as Chris Boyd spews forth every week when he refers to those who are being cheated as conspiracy theorists, how many times since VAR was introduced have we heard him say this ? Its his only reply to the indefencible and he employs it every single week ad nauseum, and like the various VAR inconsistancies has become almost excusable as its in danger of becoming the norm. The current state of affairs has only one outcome and it would be better happenning sooner rather than later, Celtic fc. must take the relevant Scottish ruling bodies responsible to task over the obvious bias afforded the Govan based club and their poisonous hoards of fans whose songs celebrating genocide go unsanctioned each week, and it should be done so in the most public way possible and let the shit hit the fan before our season is stolen from us in plain view.
Maybe it’s not bias. Match fixing has existed as long as sports betting, and Sevco’s run, not just of penalties not conceded by them but in beneficial decisions at every level, must be as close to a sure thing as is.
He’s got his dream job
On the Sunday , sitting in a room away from the fans making calls in a match involving the team you support
Then two days later , sitting in a room away from the fans making calls in a match involving your teams biggest rivals .
A total carve up
If Celtic are denied the title by Sevco supporting officials & the Celtic board make no effort to stop this state of affairs I ask the following question. As the potential income of shareholders has been affected is it not open to shareholders to sue the board for failing to maximise the potential earnings to shareholders.
It’s vital Celtic win the league this year, next year, the one after etc. etc.
Var video advantage rangers
This would be the perfect time for the Celtic hierarchy to call the SFA and the refereeing Brotherhood for what they are on the back of a good win. However they are so spineless nothing will be said or done and those who hate us will carry on regardless. We are actively being trolled.
Referee David dickinson was photographed at an orange walk a few years back,popped up on a sevco Facebook page a few years ago,huns raging telling the guy to get it down. Why is our club or better yet,one of our supporter groups not hiring a private investigator to catch these cheating fu**ers and report them too people in higher places in the game. Why the club didn’t go for total reform when they had the chance is actually criminal.
Yes James, we’re watching a rigged game right enough but the thing is our board is part of it. How on earth is it possible that Saturdays game could be so hard to call when we start the season with £72m with further CL money to come in. Our chaps need to keep the league competitive so have to have a few sleeping at the wheel windows. The whole thing is getting more farcical, it actually is starting to resemble the wrestling
None of this is surprising and it has been going on for a very long time. But even in the ‘bad old days’ the odds against rangers not having a penalty against them at home for 4 seasons would task even the best match fixer/vote counter in a dictatorship.
I’ve said many times before that the Celtic board are to blame.
This is a very risky strategy as we’ve seen recently the Celtic support are on a knife-edge, blame the board not the corrupt officials who are given a green light to carry on this way.
Fortunately my wife and daughter were not at home as I watched carter Vickers being manhandled Time and Again, my language and rage were off the scale. I am sick and tired of our cowardly board. I do believe they are complicit in wanting the huns to win this league.
Today should have been the day that Brendan spoke out about this from a CELTIC point of view…
I’ve been out and about and don’t know wheather he has or not – probably not though –
We were on a rare occasion before Sevco and won with a bit to spare so this was the perfect time to call it all out…
You can bet your ‘Last thin dime’ (Oh where are you Fergus) that Clement will find some refereeing decision to gripe about tomorrow night to put pressure on Walsh for Saturday…
He’s been well schooled already has The Big Belgian fella –
Tragically Sevco are so much cleverer and superiorly far more intelligent at these mind games sadly…
And it’ll likely pay handsome dividends for them on Saturday !
Only thing Celtic can control is how Celtic respond: our board do nothing, say little and always look stupid – taking the sh#£e that the SFA dish out. They need to represent the club’s best interests rather their own for a change. When this industrial scale cheating comes out – AND IT WILL EVENTUALLY, they will be the most guilty of all for doing absolutely nothing in the face of the most obvious evidence in our clubs entire history.
You are 100% correct so were is our toothless board
Just checked the stats ther,, Celtic 73% possession,but conceded 9 fouls to Dundee’s 3,,?? absolute corruption,,,,,
And the Huns go mental over a Chris Sutton joke,a very funny one at that
This article is bang on. We are being turned over by this bigoted system on regular basis now and the board sit back and do nothing. On a similar thought with what bigot boyd has said recently why is he allowed near Celtic games. Unbiased aye right.
Follow follow the money. The only way. Track refs accounts and crypto.