Earlier this week, the news broke about who the officials will be for the weekend’s game against the club from Ibrox.
And since we’re now numb to refereeing disasters and calamities, nobody made a big song and dance about it. Nobody even made much of a fuss about John Beaton being in the VAR room—although it’s becoming clear that the guy in the VAR room can do even more damage than the one out on the pitch.
Last night, I listened to a couple of Graham Spiers’ podcasts. I’m going to write about one of them early next week, but the most recent episode had a segment about Alan Muir. I was amazed to hear one of the journalists on the show refer to his position in exactly the same language that Celtic sites have been using in recent days: untenable.
The journalist in question actually laid out an even longer list of Alan Muir’s offences than my colleague Joe McHugh, who has an almost encyclopaedic memory for these things.
If you watched the latest podcast—and if you didn’t, why not?—you’d have seen Joe call Muir out for a number of decisions going back a decade.
But on Spiers’ show, the journalists were focused on more recent events, and that was damning enough. For Muir to have been involved in so many recent mistakes—more than one of them unfairly penalising our club—raises serious questions. Why the hell is this guy being retained as a full-time VAR official?
The question was also raised as to why no club has yet pulled out of the VAR experiment. Dundee United have come close; they’ve withdrawn from cooperating with the VAR review panel and publicly criticised both the technology and the officials behind it. But they haven’t stopped paying into the system yet.
You get the impression that it won’t be long before a club does just that—before one of them turns around and says, “No more.” Because standards clearly aren’t improving.
Muir is at the centre of the controversy right now, but he’s not the only official I never want to see in the VAR room for our matches.
I don’t trust Dickinson. I don’t trust Aitken. Needless to say, the name Dallas is one I never want to see anywhere near a Celtic game.
And then, of course, there’s Beaton. We’ve gone the full way round with him, haven’t we? Some of us have exhausted the English language talking about how bad he is, how biased he is, how he should never be anywhere near our matches. And it feels like we could go on forever.
It’s no surprise to see him involved again. The only surprise is that he’s not the on-field referee, with Steven McLean getting that job.
But honestly, at this point, the names all blur together. There are no good options—just least worst ones. Scottish officiating remains an absolute joke, a farce that allows things other countries simply would not tolerate.
That’s why this isn’t just another rant about Beaton or McLean or any of the usual suspects. This is bigger than any one official. This is about a culture.
And even in the best case scenario – one that doesn’t involve corruption – is that these guys are guilty of mind-numbing incompetence. Because if it were just bias, at least that would have a certain predictability. But if these guys are simply hopeless at their jobs, then anything can happen, to any club, in any game. The whole thing becomes completely random, and no club can rely on their officiating.
What I found fascinating last night was hearing how even members of the mainstream media hold these full-time VAR officials in utter contempt.
To hear a senior journalist describe Muir’s position as untenable was genuinely surprising, but I couldn’t agree more.
Since I first wrote about Muir, and since other Celtic sites have said the same, that word—untenable—has come up again and again. Once we’d have been called cranks, fanatics, fundamentalists for saying it.
But now? Now, journalists are using the same language. That tells you how bad things have gotten. If the clubs know this is unacceptable, if the media knows it’s untenable, how much longer do we have to put up with it? We’re out in front with the mainstream view here, and that means something has shifted under our feet.
And it’s not just officials under the spotlight. VAR itself is now under threat. The chances that it could be done away with altogether are no longer a fringe fascination but the subject of serious discussion.
I agree completely with what was said on that podcast. Sooner or later, we’re going to reach a tipping point. One club is going to say, “No more. We’re not paying for this.” And when that happens, others will follow. The whole thing will collapse.
And in some ways, that will be a shame—because VAR should be a positive development in football. It should bring clarity, ensure a level of fairness. It won’t get every decision right, but it should at least improve standards.
But there is no defending VAR as it operates in Scotland. No defending the way it’s used. No defending the poor technology. And certainly no defending the appalling standard of the officials. Whether it’s bias or incompetence doesn’t even matter in the grand scheme of things. The bottom line is simple: these people cannot be trusted.
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The problem is that officials could not be trusted before Var.
Var actually gives us an opportunity to call them out as decisions are now examined more.
Dallas was the Var official at St Mirren when he denied them a stonewall penalty against us.I think this might have been to make up for Muirs cheating at the Hibs game.
His position is untenable, what else can it be?
The Mourinho racism row rages on apparently. He’s gonna feel right at home in the midden.
As for another Muir in a hoe, I’m sure we’ll be making representations in the background, quietly as per, what a cheating hun scum bastard he is. Untenable eh? We’ll see.
Get him tae fk, and then focus on the rest of the cheatin B’s.
As much as I agree that the use of VA in Scotland is shocking, I must agree with Terry The Time here and say we must keep it. Improved? Yes, of course, but it needs to be retained.
Can you imagine how the incident at Hibs would have been forgotten by the Monday after, had we not had VAR to back us up? That’s the reason we used to be called cranks but not now. I’ve been saying from the very start of VAR that this is its great use.
With VAR, the referees have two barriers to cross when they make mistakes, or worse, allow their biases to inform their choices. Without VAR they just have to say it was an honest mistake. Of course, there will always be TV replays but the refs can always say they don’t have the benefit of them, but right now they do.
Of course, it really needs improved, as do our referees, but it needs to be retained.
VAR has been good at exposing them for what they are…
For that alone it has to stay in ma humble opinion –
I don’t wanna go back to the days of Andy Davis at Tynecastle giving ‘Rangers’ (as they were then) an injury time winning penalty which won them the league as Sotirious Kyrgiakos flew the air like a dying swan without being touched…
We haven’t forgotten or gone away you know !
the celtic board are failing the players management and fans .
When it comes to refereeing,what we’ve got in Scottish football is amatuers getting paid very well, whilst they cause havoc with a mixture of incompetence and blatant cheating. It’s not just in the big decisions but in the awarding of throw ins, corner kicks and soft fouls, that can influence possession and the flow of the game. As has been pointed out many times, in most games Celtic can have 70/80% of possession but concede a lot more fouls than their opponents. This just doesn’t make sense, just like lot’s of statistics surrounding Scottish Football.
I wouldn’t like to see VAR being dropped as for all its faults, I still think it shines a light at times on the inadequacies and dishonesty of the officials here in Scotland.
I’ve always said that the only answer is a European pool of referees interchangeable around the continent. This could be workable in this day and age of easy travel, but UEFA would have to take control of all refereeing, and most of the National FA’s would be loath to lose part of their fiefdom and the power that gives them.
Muir has to go as a warning to those Scottish officials who think they can get away with cheating.
Aye and more than Muir need to go as well Micmac !!!
Lots of good comments as per, and I fully concur with the majority that want to retain VAR.
The incompetents they employ to oversee VAR, have to be binned and the whole refereeing system completely reformed and overhauled.
Like so many pieces of the Scottish football jigsaw that have been missing for decades, it is important that we find them , piece them together properly and create a better and more honest picture.
We’ve had to endure the foul stench of bias and dishonesty amongst our officialdom for far too long, with so many of them hiding behind “honest mistakes!”
VAR, regardless of the second rate system that we use, has allowed more and more fans to see the bias, in broad daylight.
Getting rid of Muir should only be the start, and it should not end until we root out every one of these biased charlatans !
HH
VAR needs to stay & I say that as someone who doesn’t like it overall.
It does restrict their ability to spew their bias on the game.
However I do think the overhaul it needs is huge.
I think we either go to a review system which is something Gary Lineker has been advocating for over the last 18 months or so.
Or we change how VAR operates where it can only recommend the referee to the monitor to review his decision. (Similar to how it played out for us against Bayern in the CL)