Two More Incidents For Celtic To Ponder As The Need For Reform Gets Ever Clearer.

For many, many months now it almost seems as if the reform agenda is strengthened with every round of matches which passes. Crawford Allan might be on the way out the door, but he was not the start of our issues with Hampden and nor will he be the end of them.

Last week Alan Morrison highlighted “the pattern of assistance”. At the weekend we saw it in action, and it ticked several of the boxes of things he had highlighted.

One of those things isn’t even the obvious one; a couple of years ago, I did a lengthy piece on refereeing where I said that big decisions – penalties, sending offs etc – aren’t the only way to change a match.

You can destroy a team by interrupting their flow every time they have the ball. You allow tackles on them to go unpunished. You stop the match at the least excuse. You penalise every 50/50 they win. Alan is the first person I’ve ever seen who has calculated this stuff for the purposes of highlighting patterns … I think that’s an amazing part of his analysis.

We saw that yesterday at Livingston. They were allowed to waste time too, ample amounts of it. The moment we scored they ceased with that nonsense, but they did it the whole first half. The officials allow this against us time after time.

But of course, the weekend was characterised by two ridiculous penalty decisions, one which was awarded and the other which was not. The one awarded was, of course, at Ibrox for the home club. The one rejected was for us. It was as if the officials wanted to put on a show which proved the Alan Morrison theorem over the course of two games.

Another of the things he highlighted was when these major decisions tend to come, and again this was a clear-cut example of his theory in action; the Ibrox club got theirs when they were struggling and still to register a shot on target. We were refused ours when we were struggling, and we had yet to register a shot on target. See how it works?

Both are terrible decisions. Sutton was right yesterday on Sky to highlight how ours is a clear penalty, even if the Village Idiot gibbered and ranted and foamed at the mouth denying it. Michael Stewart was right on Saturday to scorn the decision to give the one they got at Ibrox. Without a doubt, these two clubs are officiated in different ways.

Over on CQN, Paul Brennan has suggested that we will not be permitted to win this. Certainly, our lives are made incredibly more difficult with the way games are refereed, but it is up to us to start putting on some pressure. Not to get special treatment but to get equal treatment, and it’s going to come down to “let the best team win.”

We are the best team. I think this will be our year. I think we will be champions. But of all the obstacles in the road, this is the one that worries me most and not without good cause. You see this pattern come up over and over again, and this weekend is as blatant as it’s ever been, and especially when so many people are talking about this issue.

All eyes are on Hampden like never before, and this stuff still doesn’t let up. And it won’t let up, not ever, until we start pushing for changes. I don’t know how much worse it has to get, but this weekend was up there with the worst so far.

Celtic needs to send the message to Hampden loud and clear, and they need to do it immediately, whether in public or private doesn’t matter as long as it heard and understood; if this title is decided by a bad refereeing call then all Hell will be paid.