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Who sheds tears for Motherwell as the SFA admits “Yeah, Watt’s goal should have stood”?

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Image for Who sheds tears for Motherwell as the SFA admits “Yeah, Watt’s goal should have stood”?

For two long weeks, all of Scottish football’s media hacks cried the blues on behalf of the club from Ibrox. This followed a split-second decision in the Cup Final which they claim adversely affected the result of the game. You’d not have believed such whining could continue for as long as it did after that match.

One of the more ridiculous comments came from Tom English, who claimed the only reason there was such an outcry was because of the two teams involved. He wanted us to ignore the fact that he himself had been part of the uproar. His point would have been no less stupid even if he had kept his mouth shut and given Celtic the credit they deserved that day.

His assertion that the controversy was driven solely by the teams involved was manifestly false. The simple truth is this: any 50/50 decision that goes Celtic’s way is highlighted for weeks, while a similar call in favour of the Ibrox club is almost entirely ignored. It is when Ibrox feels hard done by that the real screaming starts.

Fast forward to tonight, and who’s crying the blues for Motherwell?

Who’s banging the drum, demanding investigations and explanations? Who’s asking for statements from the chief executives and presidents of the associations? Who’s demanding inquiries into why two VAR officials didn’t think Tony Watt’s goal yesterday should have stood?

It’s infuriating because it’s so predictable.

Nobody is going to raise a fuss on behalf of the Fir Park club, and that has nothing to do with Motherwell themselves. The media had a couple of days to harp on when one of their players was sent off against Kilmarnock recently. But in the aftermath of yesterday’s game, there’s been no big song and dance over the disallowed goal. Why? Because of the team they were playing.

Nobody wants to highlight injustices against Ibrox’s opponents. These moments don’t matter at all. Only decisions that go against Ibrox draw the ire of the media. Tell me again there’s no pro-Ibrox bias.

Who knows what those two dropped points could cost Motherwell come season’s end? Who even cares? Certainly not the press corps. In the aftermath of the game, all the talk was about how Ibrox had fought back, how their manager might have saved his job for another few days, how Igamane had scored two goals. Even BBC Sport Scotland relegated the disallowed goal to the end of their highlights of the game last night, although it was easily the biggest talking point.

Not for them. Stephen Thompson hurriedly moved on.

Nobody weeps for Motherwell. Nobody in the media is going to stamp their feet, demanding statements, resignations, or demotions over this. And the decision itself? A travesty, plain and simple. Watching the incident, it’s obvious there’s no foul on the goalkeeper—Butterfingers just makes a mess of it.

Butland isn’t a great keeper. He’s to blame for the first goal, which he really should have stopped. The second? There’s not much he could do. But on that corner kick, when Motherwell’s disallowed goal should have stood, he was all at sea.

He’s fortunate the officials gave him the benefit of the doubt. And so is his manager. Had Motherwell gone 3-1 up at that point, I don’t believe Ibrox would have found a way back. Motherwell deserved that win.

Is it too much to hope that the likes of English, Jackson, and their ilk will raise a fuss here? Ian Maxwell can sit in his office, secure in the knowledge he won’t have to issue any statement. The Ibrox club clawed back a single point—for all the good it’ll do them, 14 points behind in the league now.

It’s a double standard that makes you sick. Motherwell have been robbed of a perfectly good goal, and the media machine barely registers it. They don’t care about standards. They don’t care about improving officiating. They care only when decisions go a certain way, and we all know which way that is.

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17 comments

  • SaigonCSC says:

    The SPFL highlights of the game on YouTube didn’t even show the incident. Astonishing.

    • Clachnacuddin and the Hoops says:

      But not really astonishing Saigon – As this is Scummy Scotland…

      Scummy when it comes to Scottish Football anyway…

      And Scummy when it comes to Scottish Cheats with Whistles, Flags and Moniters anyway –

      And a 12 year and 154 day old (as of today) ‘football’ club !!!

      • Bryan Coyle says:

        Regarding the Call Robert sponsor on Clyde Superscoard,i know him personally and he is THE biggest Celtic supporter you could ever wish to meet.

        • Clachnacuddin and the Hoops says:

          Good to see that the intelligent ones (The business one Robert) is a Celtic supporter Bryan…

          The ‘Motherwell’ fan (debatable) is intelligent enough for sure –

          The balding guy Rodger (not that I can talk) – whoever he is – seems intelligent enough although his body language seemed to squirm whenever anything positive was being said about Celtic for sure…

          Halliday is simply not and I’m not sure what Motherwell fans think about him on that show to talk about Celtic and Sevco mostly and he was compromised last night for sure…

          That was the first ever time I’d seen the show in that format and hopefully it’s the last…

          Back to Alexa tonight and 2nd of January – But only if Celtic Win of course !!!

  • JT says:

    Interestingly, there was a more apparent push on the Southampton goalkeeper in their game against Crystal Palace. VAR decided to award the goal. Also a foul conceded by Southampton outside the box which continued marginally inside the box was taken from where it was initiated – two feet outside the box.

    Maybe, Wee Wullie called it wrong and just hung the VAR team out to dry, especially the assistant with wrong sounding name to officiate in Scottish football. That name was something that BBC Scotland were very quick to pick up and exploit. Their partiality would be a better focus to concentrate on rather than a hopeless hack like Keith Jackson.

  • Brattbakk says:

    REPLAY! REPLAY! What school did the var ref go to? Hahaha, no there’s none of that, no talk of foreign refs. As for Butland, he’s not great, not even good and any decent club would’ve dropped him by now but not them, they want £8m hahaha. The only positive news for the Ibrox rabble is they’ve got Man U soon.

  • Dan says:

    Oh, I so agree with this piece James. Said similar so many times. No one gives a toss about decisions that go against a team playing Rangers. We surely must be the most biased and poorly run league in the world.

  • Clachnacuddin and the Hoops says:

    I’m visiting family just now and a health care professional was in visiting ma old auntie so Clyde Superscoreboard had to go off on Alexa…

    As a comprise ma sister set it up on ma mobi (I’m not very tecchy savvy);and it was a live screen with Gordon Duncan (a decent host – If he’s Sevco then just say it and we live (sort of) happily ever after) –

    He did ask Motherwell fans to come on regarding the decisions for Sevco – None did – Although it’s more than likely the producer didn’t let them on –
    He wasn’t very vociferous about the pro Sevco cheating the way he was about Fillipe Fillop’s ranting about ‘pro Celtic refereeing’ which never was…

    Ex Sevco Guy Halliday was on along with a guy called Rodger (a man with hair thinning out and receding) like my own bloody hair is in ma old age…

    I take it he’s a Sevco fan as when they went on to Brendan talking about Celtic and our wonderful calendar year of 2024 you’d think that guy Rodger and Halliday were drinking vomit so you would…

    Also – Above them all is a big board with Clyde Superscoreboard and Call Robert (probably the Sevco supporting producer) but the colour of it was shall we say ‘interesting’ –

    RED, WHITE & BLUE (of fuckin course) ORANGE & CRIMSON to a lesser degree…

    They’re not even trying to hide it these days –

    Still – I suppose The Fuckin Christmas Tree was GREEN !!!

  • Bryan Coyle says:

    Regarding the Call Robert sponsor on Clyde Superscoard,i know him personally and he is THE biggest Celtic supporter you could ever wish to meet.

  • MarkB says:

    I think the goal should have stood. But Willie Collum will not say this is a mistake. Why? Because it was debatable. There was contact so it was an I interpretation of the laws. It could have gone to VAR review perhaps. The difference in the Cup Final was it was a factual error. It was a foul given and it was inside the box there was no need for VAR review. It was a penalty. VAR made a factual error.

    • PortoJoe says:

      That depends on when Beaton blew his whistle. If he blew for the boot contact on ankle that was outside the box and anything after the blow on the whistle doesn’t matter as game is stopped. Would have been easy to demonstrate if they cleaned up the audio and showed contact plus whistle noise.

      • Clachnacuddin and the Hoops says:

        Good point PortoJoe – But that doesn’t suit The agenda of The Sevco Hun Hoards nor The agenda of The Scummy’s…

        40 hours later – I wonder is anything being said in The Scummy’s…

        Probably not – But I Certainly ain’t looking to find out for sure !

      • MarkB says:

        I can’t believe people are still talking about this Cup Final decision as debateable. Listen/watch back to the game Beaton blows WELL after the final contact. We totally got away with one that day. It is clearly a penalty 100%. Just accept that one did go in our favour. However, I was wrong today on Butland as the KMI panel have deemed the Jack Butland incident was incorrect 3-2 and a goal should have been awarded. Whats interesting is Beaton is ref and Celtic get one in their favour then Clancy is ref and Rangers get one in their favour. I do think VAR is evening out “honest mistakes”. This is a positive. Rangers have not had a penalty all season it is definitely getting better.

        • Clachnacuddin and the Hoops says:

          A couple of questions MarkB on The League Cup Final OUTWITH The Penalty / Non Penalty debate…

          1) – Should Jefte have been red carded for going over the top and raking his studs down Nichols Khun ?

          2) – Should Sevco’s second goal have been disallowed given that Propper had his arms around Cameron Carter Vickers on the Celtic goal line ?

          3) – Should Sevco have finished the match with 11 men on the field of play given their persistent hacking and fouling with so many players on bookings from Beaton ?

          I reckon they got a helluva lot in their favour that day…

          Unfortunately Brendan and Lord Lucan-Nicholson were mute in their response…

          In the case of Lord Lucan-Nicholson as per always of course !

          • MarkB says:

            I have no idea I didn’t see these as significant incidents. You did that’s your opinion and I respect that. Just as people should respect a penalty should have been given to Rangers it was a factual error not a judgement. I have seen decades (since 1960s) of bad decisions against us … I have seen two league cup finals recently where we got the benefit. Last week and the Jullian goal that was offside. Things are definitely better than they were.

        • micmac says:

          If Beaton didn’t blow for the 1st contact then a penalty should be awarded, you seem certain of the whistle not being blown, what do you base that certainty on?
          I do think that as far as VAR is concerned it has recently made Refs wary about awarding controversial decisions, which is an improvement.
          There are still numerous ways referees can influence games without VAR interfering, against Motherwell on Sunday The Rangers player Raskin committed numerous fouls after being booked no further booking was forthcoming.
          I’ve been watching Celtic since the 50’s and would say with certainty that for every bad decision going our way at least 5 have been in favour of the Ibrox mob.
          I do think that VAR with all its faults has made the game fairer, although since its implementations I would like the offside rule to be amended to clear daylight between the attacker and last defender being the deciding factor .

  • Volp says:

    Ahh proper and genuine journalism,it does exist !
    Great article and to add to your pertinent points I await a reciprocal media and SFA sanctioning and damning of both VAR officials that were on duty that day for not intervening to correct the refs mistake that cost Well 2 points against Sevco.

    A certain Sevco supporting (allegedly )Steven MacLean was on VAR if I’m not mistaken.

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