Hibs Face Sanctions For Their Little Ibrox Joke. Is This Still Only Celtic’s Problem?

Which part of the following statement have Hibs failed to understand here? The SFA’s officiating scandal does not just affect Celtic. This morning, on the back of a lamentable decision that their manager bottled out of discussing his feelings on, they might be getting charged anyway. Because of a joke. The governing bodies in this country are the joke.

Yes, Hibs are facing an SFA sanction for the Tweet, the one I wrote the article about yesterday, the one which highlighted how widespread the belief is in the Scottish football theory of “penalty to Sevco.” It’s a fact of life here. Every club factors it in when they come to Glasgow or when that club goes to visit them. It has become part of the routine.

You think of Crawford Allan, forced to hand in his I Love Hugh Dallas pencil sharpener, settling some scores and burning a couple of offices down whilst he waits for his formal termination at the end of this campaign and you wonder just how deep officiating in this country will sink before he finally slinks off and stops embarrassing the game like this.

That’s what decision making in Scottish football is now; an embarrassment. A joke, on the rest of us, because when you can’t even joke about a governing body which won’t govern, when you can’t even take the piss out of an organisation which is either bent or stinking of incompetence then we’re not far away from finally plumbing the depths.

For years here in Scotland too many clubs have been content to put all this stuff off as “conspiracy theories” and “West of Scotland” garbage; it’s never been either of those things. SFA complicity in the sins of Rangers was well documented. Celtic brought down an SFA President and should have hounded another out of office. The head of referees was relieved of his duties in a scandal involving a sectarian email … you’re not paranoid if they’re really out to get you.

Why has it taken so long for some people to wake up to the bald facts here? Every time a decision goes the way of Ibrox, to smooth the way towards the next three points or the next round of the cup or that walk up the steps of Hampden to collect one that affects all of us. Because Celtic aren’t always the team on the wrong end of those decisions … and so every team in this league has, at one time or another, been the victim of the stuff that we all know is going on.

Hibs got screwed yesterday, and if that wasn’t enough their manager didn’t even feel confident enough to risk a sanction.

They’re getting sanctioned anyway because of the joke, and that makes them a laughing stock if they accept it, but it makes Scotland a laughing stock because for too long certain people at Hampden have behaved like this and across the game other people have been just fine with that. Ibrox can demand that refs don’t get games and they escape any punishment.

They leak it to their fan sites that they think certain officials are bent – not incompetent, bent – and nothing happens. Hibs Twitter account does something for a laugh and that could be detrimental to the health of Scottish football. And I suppose that’s true when Scottish football is run by a tiny cabal, for the benefit of one club.

But they’re not the problem anymore. The problem now is the silence. The silence of every other club in this league. The failure to get a grip on this and demand real changes.