Today we saw a performance from the officials at Easter Road which highlighted virtually everything that is wrong with officiating in this country … and not just here. Let’s get the offside nonsense out of the way first.
I understand the offside thing to an extent. In a close decision you keep the flag down and you allow the move to play out. If there’s a goal or whatever then it can be checked in the aftermath. Perfectly reasonable. But keeping the flag down when the offside is clear and blatant does nothing but endangers players, frustrates fans and results in needless and stupid stoppages to the game.
UEFA and FIFA just love to mess with the rules, don’t they? And since the introduction of VAR the tweaks and changes just keep on coming. VAR was meant to simplify the sport by focussing on a handful of key decisions. It has bled into every nook and cranny of the sport instead and not for the better.
And today at Easter Road it overturned a perfectly good goal for Celtic. Alastair Johnston’s ball may or may not have crossed the line; none of us has seen a single concrete piece of evidence to support that claim. Rodgers, rightly, described the decision as a guess. The so-called “factual” nature of it, he dismissed out of hand as anyone should. The SFA pushed a fiction, not a fact.
Rodgers was scathing in his assessment of it, and in the dire quality of what passes for VAR in Scotland. Too few cameras. A cheap, tacky, badly put together version of a technology which in this form is ripe to be exploited and manipulated and even when it’s not being used for those things is shamefully, shockingly, obviously unfit for purpose at this level. It’s one of many things clubs tolerate which they shouldn’t.
This stuff comes from the top of the house and is the result of having governing bodies who are lazier than any bad footballer we’ve ever watched. Governing bodies which don’t want to govern at all. How did Scottish football ever get stuck with such small men, such pygmies, with this local bowling club mentality? And why in God’s name are clubs, such as Celtic, content to live with this ridiculous state of affairs?
Today, at Ibrox, Igamane was red carded for a violent lunge at a player. VAR intervened. The decision was changed to a yellow. VAR is no longer correcting errors. It is deciding games. It is over-ruling refs on everything and especially here in Scotland. We’ll find out later whether it’s got this one right.
But yesterday, the SFA, in a very unsurprising announcement, told all of us what Celtic fans already knew anyway—that last week, John Beaton did his favourite club yet another favour, handing them a major decision in a crucial game at a time when they needed it most.
Nobody was shocked to find out that Hearts should have had a penalty. Everyone watching that game knew they should have had a penalty. That the away team went up the pitch and scored less than a minute later was simply a grim overture to what was already a scandalous call.
John Beaton. Imagine that, huh?
What were the chances?
What were the chances that if there was a 50/50 decision to be made in that game, it would go the Ibrox club’s way? Yeah, you just couldn’t make it up. The only thing surprising about it was that anybody would be surprised.
I’ll tell you what else wasn’t surprising—once again, the review panel got to the correct verdict, but again by a majority vote. Three members of the panel thought it was a penalty. Two people didn’t. Unless John Beaton and one of the VAR guys were actually on the panel, I find it hard to believe that there are two people in this country who genuinely believe that wasn’t a penalty.
Dundee United were absolutely right to walk out on that farce, to call it a farce, to refuse to be involved in it any longer. They were right to call out Scotland’s implementation of VAR as a whole. Other clubs should have followed them. Celtic certainly should. After that decision today there’s no defending the technology; Rodgers has blamed the technology because an official not on the pitch has over-ruled the one who was on the pitch, without having a proper view of it.
Alan Muir has used VAR to overturn a legitimate Celtic goal without having the tools to be able to do it fairly. VAR has been used an alibi for a decision which is essentially corrupt, whether by bias or whatever. You cannot have a major decision like that hang on the subjective opinion of someone who is only meant to over-turn a referee and a linesman when there is a “clear and obvious error.”
That was neither clear nor obvious. It was a sham.
Dundee Utd know this whole thing stinks to high heaven. And it’s not just that technology is bad and that some people on that committee lack expertise—some of them simply don’t want to give up their biases. They sit in that room, and instead of exercising judgment, they exercise their prejudices.
What does our club make of all this?
When you have someone like Ian Maxwell and someone like Neil Doncaster standing in front of the Scottish Parliament, basically insulting elected officials by claiming Scottish football is in great condition; when you have clubs like Dundee United walking out of VAR review panels because of the unprofessional way they’re run; when you see decisions like that today, indefensible calls; when you consider what I wrote the other day about the glaring hole in financial fair play that allows English club owners to buy Scottish clubs and essentially launder money through them—how can any club continue to pretend that this environment is healthy?
How can Celtic continue to act as if this mess is conducive to growth and development? How can we pretend that the risks we’re forced to take are acceptable? The more you look at the SFA, the clearer it becomes that the true danger to Celtic does not come from any rival club but from the holes in corporate governance that threaten us.
Let me put it this way. If the Ibrox club—which, this week, has been revealed to be at the centre of yet another tax scandal and I haven’t even had the time to write about that yet—is bought in a leveraged buyout, and the cost of that buyout is dumped onto their shoulders; if they can’t pay back the interest on the loans and the company walks away, leaving an indebted club mortgaged beyond the hilt, unable to pay even the smallest bill, and unable to find another buyer because of the massive debt their last owner incurred—what is Scottish football supposed to do when they collapse into the same black hole that swallowed Rangers?
This game will never recover from that. Another crisis of that sort at their club would represent an existential risk to the future of football in this country.
This article isn’t about the club from Ibrox. I’ve covered that in detail. But the possibility of something like that should have been closed off in 2012 and it was not. The guardrails are actually weaker than they were when Craig Whyte bought Rangers from David Murray for a £1, and used season ticket income to pay off the bank who needed to sign off on the deal to get it over the line.
Who advocated for the changes that would have prevented those things from ever happening again? Who stood up when we were bringing in VAR and nodded through such a sub-par version of it that it has unarguably made many matters worse? Who gives a damn about the complete failures of governance by those who run Scottish football? The VAR debacle is a symptom of a much graver disease.
But it’s still another example of dysfunctionality, of bad management, of bad leadership. And it’s another issue that, for reasons passing understanding, our club doesn’t challenge and seems content to tolerate.
Why didn’t we walk out with Dundee Utd? Their protest was just that; a lone voice in the wilderness. Clearly, other clubs agree with their position. Why did nobody offer them support? Are the rest just cowards or what?
I know we are not as passive as we appear to be.
I know we’re aware that something which endangers the fabric of the game is a clear and present danger to us, just as a I suspect it’s not just the Celtic manager who thinks that our two-bob version of VAR stinks.
Scottish football cannot carry on being run by the people who run it today.
It cannot continue to be one of the few top leagues without financial fair play regulations, without associated party transaction rules. It cannot remain an open door with a voluntary “fit and proper person” policy that depends on the honesty and integrity of people who may not have either. Let me remind people again that the SFA’s version of “fit and proper” regulations relies on crooks and charlatans voluntarily telling the SFA, before they take control of a club, “Hey, we’re crooks and charlatans.”
And while we’re at it, let’s not forget that both Doncaster and Maxwell have said some pretty shady things about the idea of a Scottish football regulator—an idea they reject out of hand because they don’t want to give up even a fraction of their power.
Never mind that they have no intention of using that power to improve the game. Nothing these people do can be separated from their own grubby self-interest.
And yet this continues.
We talk all the time on this blog about how much of a shambles the club across the city is. And they are still a shambles today, in spite of all the positive media spin they’ve been getting in the last 72 hours.
Not one step toward genuine reform has been taken over there. In their favourite scenario, their club is once again spending someone else’s money, not their own. And the joke is that the governing bodies are already preparing to sanction that should it be the plan instead of trying to impose some form of sanity.
As big a mess as they are at Ibrox, the mess at Hampden is worse. Outside of those with Ibrox sympathies, nobody who watched the Hearts game failed to see that it was a blatant penalty—except, perhaps, for the officials on the day and the two people on the panel who backed them up.
Almost everyone who watched our game today knows there’s no actual justification for knocking that goal off. We can’t prove definitively that the ball crossed the line and so there’s no legitimate reason to change the ref and the linesman’s call … but nevertheless, we’ve lost that game 2-1.
Scottish football stinks to high heaven.
And what astonishes me is that the fixes are easy.
These fixes are good enough for every other league in Europe. They’re good enough for our neighbours down south. Financial fair play, proper fit and proper person regulations, refereeing reform to ensure fans of clubs aren’t officiating their games, a better version of VAR, associated party transaction rules—there’s no reason why Scottish football shouldn’t be protected by the same basic structures that exist elsewhere.
No reason—except that our governing bodies don’t want to govern. They don’t want to strengthen the rules. They don’t want to make the game safer, fairer, or better run. They don’t want to make clubs more professional. And the clubs themselves stand back and allow these people to grossly mismanage the sport.
And I don’t know why.
As the biggest club in the country, we should be a lot more vocal on this than we are. We should be a lot more concerned than we seem to be. I know we take a private stand on many of these issues, but for how much longer will that be enough?
Are we really going to wait for a major scandal or a major disaster—something that hurts our share price, harms our standing, and undermines all the work we’ve done to put ourselves in a strong position?
Are we going to wait until another SPFL club goes out of business and plunges the whole league into crisis before we say enough is enough? Are we going to wait for a VAR decision which is as damaging as it is inexplicable and even scandalous?
As I’ve said before, Noah built the ark before the rain.
What are we waiting for before we start openly lobbying for something better? Dundee Utd would be with us. I can’t understand why we aren’t with them.
Photo by Paul Devlin/SNS Group via Getty Images
Scottish football is heading for north of Ireland league status. Celtic needs out of this corrupt league. I don’t know how we do it but we should having serious talks with the FA.
Very well said James, in fact brilliantly put, and you are absolutely correct. Our own club are guilty of dong almost nothing to combat this cheating fiasco, we appear toothless’ and somehow yourself and like minded others need to force them to listen and react accordingly. Get lawyers involved, take them to task and get the whole circus stopped in its tracks. We must all raise our voices and concerns, it cannot be allowed to continue otherwise we are all doomed.
Tbh ah thought the ball had crossed the line and out and I’ll no change my mind, until its proved otherwise. Tho Celtic are perfectly within their rights tae request the conclusive proof and I hope they do. Bottom line is tho, imo we didnae deserve tae take anythin from that game today. We weren’t clinical enough in the final 3rd and defensively, we didnae look as secure as we can be.
Over the line or not doesn’t matter, that is not the point. The point is that the VAR team over ruled a decision that they had no right to do so with. Would it have been over ruled had it been the huns in the same position, Of fking course not.
Aye ah know what the ‘point’ is. Was just givin my own view on the actual play itself. And already stated I hope we chase it up. Hope that makes it clearer.
You’ve hit the nail on the head jonny it’s irrelevant now if the ball was out or in its the fact var have not followed protocol and lied to the referee that it was a factual decision
Aye Kev, the key word is you “thought” it was over the line, I’ve watched it umpteen times and I’m not sure one way or the other. Muir has got to be certain it was over the line to overturn the onfield decision and like us there is no way he could be certain. Because we didn’t play well doesn’t justify cheating by officials.
Celtic should be highlighting this bigtime and asking for an emergency meeting of clubs.
Aye ah agree with that. Maybe didnae make myself clear enough.
Thinking the ball is over the line is irrelevant.
It must be SEEN to be over the line. If it isn’t then the goal must stand and the decision to overrule the goal has to be questioned in the strictest possible terms.
If Muir guessed, then Muir has to answer for that, and explain why he breached the rules.
I’ve never really wanted VAR but it’s not going anywhere and the Scottish teams will be loathe to invest in ever improving (hopefully), more expensive technology so we’ll be stuck with this shit system. The other thing that bugs me with the offsides apart from the risk of injury, is when the linesman is fairly sure he’s off but keeps his flag down and it goes for a corner. They never get pulled back. They still take ages over all the decisions too, Hibs 2nd was clearly onside but it took forever.
Every televised game you see….. at corner kicks…. the ball EDGE is placed right on the outer edge of the white line, checked by the linesman and deemed to be ok (legal).
We all know whats going on !!!
The comfort that I take from today’s games and events is that every one of the SSM’s erections would have well and truly SUBSIDED by 5 o’clock today.
Muir could not wait to jump and its on this that shows the bias. Muir didnt have much more than what we saw on live screens in oz, at best he had halt, play fwd , play back.
They can produce all the cl9se ups and micro shots they like later but on the day at that time muir had what we had.
That brings me to var where is the money to show the tech? , the clubs money they put up for the system, where haz that gone because ita not all on tech and i suspect its been a nice earner fir the refs and sfa.
Lastly, these MIB these mercenaries affect more than just a result. There are 12 men down a win bonus. When these MIB affect a win like hearts or yesterday will collum and the sfa pay the 12 men the win bonus they lost?.
Will they fuck. ! Corrupt to the core. Its time the minister for sport took over.
Muir has been under the cosh since The League Cup Final – A ‘Penalty’ that not one Sevco player of coaching staff member even appealed for…
He was always gonna even it up one day and today was that day…
Probably better happening today than in The Scottish Cup game –
They will be under huge scrutiny in that one now after today…
Not that it’ll bother them too much !
We get sick of commenting about the complete lack of proper governance in our footballing fiefdom, and the awful ( biased) officiating both on and off the park.
Till a new broom completely sweeps away and eradicates all the mistrust, inefficiency and amateurism in our game, then we shall continue to see dreadful decisions, like we did today.
Yes, our club should be at the forefront of any actions for change, but obviously we are all just fans, and won’t be holding our breath.
The decisions at Tynecastle last season which led to BR being charged with disrepute, should have been the seminal moment when our club said, enough is enough. We are all still largely in the dark as to what type of victory our legal representation won on that occasion.
However, the fact that the shambolic officiating is still in force, would suggest that anything we achieved that day, was very hollow ! HH
People on here at times, talk absolute garbage. The ball is clearly over the line, so therefore it is no goal. It was the correct decision. I mean unless they change the laws were you are allowed the ball to go out of play. Brendan is taking garbage here, imagine that was the other way, and a club equalized through that against us, we would be going crazy. Some people on here , talk absolute nonsense.
So good guy you’ve got the best eyesight of all the people that have made a comment, I’ve watched this loads of times and still can’t make up my mind so imo neither can var so in the rules of the game the goal stands,so guess who’s talking utter garbage Y O U
Well you obviously need to go to specsavers then. Go on to YouTube, type in Celtic vs hibs, and it will show you it, it’s as clear as day. I don’t know what the hell you’ve been watching it on. The ball is clearly over the line. The referee made the wrong decision awarding the goal, var were there to help him, and they got the decision correct. They applied the laws of the game. You can’t have it both ways. It’s no goal, it’s as simple as that. If you watch that clip on YouTube, and you still can’t see it, you really need to go and book an appointment to get your eyes tested.
Sorry, you’re talking nonsense. I actually think the ball was probably out. But the ref and the AR gave a goal. Ball in/out of play is a factual decision and to intervene and overturn that, var needs to have clear evidence it was out of play, which from 18 yard line they cannot do- it is physically impossible to see from that angle and if you struggle with that concept there are numerous videos (Japan world cup etc) which can explain this. No photos or videos have as yet been released confirming the ball was out. The BBC were told the 18 yard line camera was used, that alone is enough to ring alarm bells for the var boss.
It’s on YouTube, watch it . It’s called Campbell double sinks hoops,with fire next to it. There is your proof. There is no debate to this, there is nothing probable about it, it’s clearly over the line. If you can’t see that, then you should also go to specsavers. Somebody watch this, then come back to me. I’ve gave yous the YouTube clip.
I’ve watched it. It doesn’t show what you claim. It’s neither a view from in line with the goal line nor directly above the ball. Which are the only 2 useful views.
A VAR cannot use the views in the video you suggest to overturn a goal on a factual basis. That the ball looks out in that video is meaningless, as the world cup goal for Japan neatly explains.
Ah good old You Tube so it must be absolutely right then – only fuckin well not right…
While we know that The SFA are absolutely amateur at best in governance of the corrupt game in Scotland surely even they wouldn’t stick it on a You Tube Video Clip…
Whose to know if it’s a disgruntled Hearts fan doctoring it to get at Hibernian…
Whose to know if it’s a disgruntled Sevco fan getting at Celtic and Brendan’s justified complaints…
That’s what Brit Lovers like them do you realise…
For what it’s worth I find it impossible to say one way or the other –
I’m led to believe the WHOLE ball must be out for that goal to be disallowed, but I’m led to believe these are the rules from Celtic supporters…
Please indeed feel free to correct me if these Celtic supporters have furnished me with the wrong rules of the game goodguy !
Excellent article. Scottish Football is a closed shop cesspool of corruption, significantly less regulated than any other small league where the select few can feast on whatever is possible and there are no rules and regulations to keep them honest. Fit and proper ownership? Look at Murray ( too dodgy for the “honest men of Ayr Utd) he bought RFC on borrowed money in the 80’s, Dundee owners, Mad Vlad, The lying king etc. Also Peter Lawwell structured a deal where DD didn’t buy the whole of Celtic but got complete control. Both men have trousered millions since.
The Status Quo must be maintained for the Scottish Footballs vested interests to keep their snouts in the trough. VAR is as corrupt as Scottish Football is but do you really think CFC will rock the boat? Where would Maxwell, Nicolson etc and the most blatant example being King get their excessive unwarranted income ( maybe Holyrood?) via the poor dupes supporters who blindly hand over their hard earned money to this corrupt cesspool.
Good on DUFC showing some integrity.
Good guy I’ve got 20,/20 vision according to my opticians in January, but you still don’t get it if Muirhead is not 100,% sure he MUST GIVE THE GOAL ITS THE RULES OF THE GAME.
Well we will agree to disagree on this, I think they got it right, yous are entitled to your opinion.
Thegoodghuy, yourself and everyone that you claim who are talking “absolute garbage”
are entitled to an opinion, as you quite rightly proffer at the end.
The fundamental point in the episode yesterday, was that the ONFIELD referee & linesman gave the goal whilst the OFF FIELD VAR official didn’t have a CLEAR enough image which would have enabled him to confirm that the referee had made a CLEAR & OBVIOUS error, to overturn and therefore disallow the goal.
So he has taken it upon himself to use guesswork, which is, quite clearly, a scandalous decision ! It was inconclusive, and goal should have stood !
Our manager was 100% correct to call it out and our club should be following up on his comments.
Quite clearly, our Poundland version of VAR is not fit for purpose, and neither are SOME of the officials, that operate it!
This is not just based on yesterday’s decision that affected us, but just the latest in a long line of them, since it was introduced.
Either invest properly in the system and officials with greater clarity, or bin it ! We know that the latter isn’t an option, so we await any updates with bated breath ! HH