Kyogo “lucky to escape” a public flogging: A Column by Bobby Maddhun.

With Keith Jackass on sabbatical this week we have a guest reporter; former whistler and Lodge master of ceremonies Bobby Maddhun, who has a lot on his mind …

Did you watch the game last night? The Aberdeen game? I missed it myself as I was at Ibrox on unofficial business. But I caught it when I got home, and I was aghast that Kyogo Furuhashi was allowed to stay on the pitch after his clear assault on the Aberdeen keeper. What was he playing at? What were the officials playing at?

Furuhashi is a menace. This is not the first time he’s partially spoiled my evening. It is high time he was sent to the public stocks for a good flogging. It’s the only way we’re ever going to force him to hand in a transfer request, and that’s the only way we’re ever going to be free of him. He is going to keep on doing damage until he’s sent packing.

As officials it was the duty of Don Robertson and his VAR backups to take the appropriate action here, which was to send him off and pass the video on to the Procurator Fiscal, and for the SFA to urge formal charges be filed for that kung-fu move he pulled.

A custodial sentence, one ruling him out for not just the Hampden game but the coming one at Ibrox may seem like overkill, but it would have sent a clear message that Celtic players will not be allowed to challenge for the ball and all of Scottish football would be better off for it. Instead, he’ll be eligible to play.

It’s no wonder we have anarchy in the game. People obviously have not read the rulebook, or its many annexes. When I was an official I had some responsibility for writing up some of the rules, and you only have to look at the league tables these past ten years to see how far the standards we set have slipped. Back then, we clearly understood that in a close game the Celtic player never gets the benefit of the doubt; some of us laboured to get that into the main body of the regulations, where it would have been crucial in allowing referees to more openly exercise their mandate.

Subsequent SFA heads have either been too afraid of the Parkhead club or are in some way beholden to them. It was not the same in my day where you knew where the power in Scottish football came from and acted accordingly. It wasn’t Celtic Park. It wasn’t Hampden either. Everything is different now and look at the mess we’re in.

Kyogo is just one example of Celtic players who are obviously out of control this season; their German winger Nicolas Kuhn is breaking all sorts of rules, every week, in racking up so many goals and assists, especially when the organising principle of this league is that the team from Ibrox must be able to regularly win silverware; and I don’t mean their pitiful haul which they put up at this year’s AGM in the absence of serious honours.

Kyogo is where the message should have been sent out loud and clear. He’s the example who should have been made of their whole team. This single incident is a single example of how out of control the Parkhead club has gotten. If they were not protected on high none of what we’re seeing at other clubs would be happening. It’s time that famous Unseen Hand was removed from the tiller and proper Peepul put back in charge.