GLASGOW, SCOTLAND - JANUARY 29: Celtic's Auston Trusty celebrates after scoring to make it 4-2 during a UEFA Europa League 2025/26 League Phase MD8 match between Celtic and FC Utrecht at Celtic Park, on January 29, 2026, in Glasgow, Scotland. (Photo by Craig Williamson/SNS Group via Getty Images)
Even though he is unavailable to play, Celtic put Auston Trusty in front of the media yesterday. That was a smart move. It allowed him to speak publicly for the first time about what happened against Hearts and gave us a clear sense of where his head is right now.
He looks fine. More than fine, actually. He scored a crucial goal in Europe in midweek and he is playing as well as we have ever seen him play in a Celtic shirt.
Trusty is like so many players who arrive here from elsewhere. He is American, but we signed him from England. And England might as well be Mars. Until you have been here, until you have lived it, until you have played in this environment and seen how things really work, you cannot properly grasp how mad it all is.
Players hear the warnings before they sign. They hear that the whole world is against Celtic. They hear that nobody wants you to succeed except your own supporters. But until you pull on the shirt, until you carry that weight, those words remain abstract. Trusty knows now.
He is also playing under the right manager to explain it all to him if explanation is even required. I do not think it is. His comments were spot on, particularly when he said that most of the world agrees with his view of the decision. He is absolutely right. That must feel strange.
Because when a gross injustice takes place, you expect the media to talk about it.
You expect newspapers and broadcasters to debate it seriously. You expect some of them to defend the player. Especially when the strongest agreement comes from former referees, neutral voices, all saying the same thing: the decision stinks.
I cannot help wondering what Trusty thought when someone first explained who John Beaton is.
What his reaction was when he learned that his match had been refereed by a known supporter of the club from Ibrox.
Coming from England, that must have landed like a shock.
In most European leagues, that would be an absolute no-go. England has wrestled with this issue for years, but they at least acknowledge the problem. Their justification is simple and sensible: it protects the integrity of the referee as much as the integrity of the sport. You do not put an official in a position where he might have to make a decisive call against the club he supports.
This is not just about corruption. It is about basic human nature. Officials are human beings. They have instincts, loyalties, and emotional reactions. Nobody should place them in that position in the first place.
Trusty, and other Celtic players who have suffered wild disciplinary decisions at the hands of Beaton and others, must wonder why Scottish football allows this to happen. We all wonder. We have talked about it endlessly. But it must feel even more surreal coming from a league where it simply would not be tolerated into one where it happens routinely and the media shrugs.
They must look at Scottish football and see something resembling a banana republic.
That is exactly what it is.
When Trusty says that most of the world knows what the decision was, that matters.
The reaction in England will have been disbelief. The reaction in America will have been disbelief. This was a peculiarly Scottish decision, driven by peculiarly Scottish motivations, and nobody on our side has to guess what those motivations were.
Of course he has been clued in now. Of course he knows who Beaton is. And of course he knows better than to say anything too strong. He has already paid the price once. The last thing anyone needs is another ban handed out to make a point.
So yes, disbelief. Yes, frustration.
But the larger issue remains the same one it has always been: the silence.
The silence we have grown used to. The silence that got us here. The pretence that this is normal.
It is not normal. It never was.
I love these articles for their raw naked truth in the face of this backward taboo.If the press, SFA and government were to face this blatant bias that pollutes Scottish football then it would end, which is why they don’t.
For politicians it will lose them some votes, for the press and the SFA it will make things harder for the Sevco team they support.
How many points has Beaton alone gained for Sevco this season ? At least 4 imo.Then there are all the rest. It isn’t fair on the Sevco fans in black but it is conning all other fans and teams as much as any blatant match fixing would.
The result is the same.
Generations to come will look back on this current time as the dark ages in Scottish football, when refereeing bias towards Sevco was treated as normal by the press, SFA and governments.
One small issue though,this isn’t a ‘peculiarly Scottish decision’ or ‘driven by peculiarly Scottish motivations’ as these people don’t represent Scotland and their biases are not Scottish.They represent a specific group who consider themselves more British than Scottish.
And they have more in common with many of the same types from towns,villages and cities all over England than they do with Scots.
If Scottish football is corrupt it’s because CFC is part of that corruption.
The Celtic Board cheated ……to help the new club.
If Scottish football is corrupt it’s because CFC is part of that corruption. Would you like to explain JK??
I will for you. R.H. Davidson, Wharton, McClean, Madden, Dallas, “senior and junior”
Beaton, Dickinson. etc. I rest my case.
PL and DD had the chance to sort Scottish Football in 2012, and opted out. The reasons for this were a mix of cowardice and what they saw as business interests. They were, and still are willing to see the Cetic supporters sitting at the back of the bus, so that they could continue to fill their pockets with cash, as they gave support to the to the new kids on the block at Ibrox, and the myth of the OF living on.
They have underfunded and mismanaged our club for the past 10 years to keep the Huns hanging on to our coattails, to the extent that they could overtake us this season. with calamitous financial implications for Celtic FC.
Then they wonder why we’re effin livid wae them, and want them gone.
Like everyone else I would have preferred the Huns to have withered, died and to be completely eradicated from the face of the earth back in 2012. The Celtic board though, yes for business reasons, kept them on life support and they are still there playing catch up to this day. Perhaps their own hatred of that institution is not as intense as our own, but it is also their job to maintain Celtic as a viable concern, to make us a successful business in our own right and someone during that period, when we should have been shoving the hose down their drowning necks, decided to save the Sons of Satan in a watered down state. To a certain extent that decision did work for us and we have had a unparalleled level of success since then. Did they do the right thing, I don’t think so, for my hatred of them knows no bounds, but that is purely subjective for we will never know what would have happened had they been rightly eliminated back then? Eliminated temporarily, but not exterminated because the rats would have resurrected in some shape or form and as I said, who knows? What I do know though is that we should really put it behind us, stop harping back to it, for that will gain us nothing, it is part of history now. Sure, we should never let them forget it, but what matters the most is the here and now, the present situation should be our biggest concern and I can only hope that we will come out of this malaise as a much stronger version of the Club we know and love.
I’ve said this a number of times now but 2012 to me is a huge missed opportunity. Instead of looking at the likes of Bayern Munich, Liverpool and Barcelona who to varying degrees dwarf a local rival who was once on a par with them, the feared the ‘Espanyolification’ of the old Rainjurz would result in a corresponding ‘Linfieldisation’ for us, a club which without its bitter rival Belfast Celtic became the biggest fish in a tiny pond and dominated an increasingly irrelevant competition. So they became party to the Five Way Agreement, shackling us to the rednecks across town. What they could have done instead of closing down half a stand for several years is to offer under 18s extremely low cost season tickets with some incentivisation built in around catering and merchandise to balance out the costs, bringing the next generation aboard early and creating a cohort for whom the toxic and unpleasant ‘derby’ was not a central part of their match-going experience.
But no, they just put tarpaulin over the upper tier of the Lisbon Lions stand to keep the birdshit off them until the Huns were back…… the unimaginative thinking of old white men who haven’t had an original idea between them in a decade.
Not sure what “white” men have to do with anything.
Calm down snowflake
Why don’t the board demand that Beaton is taken off VAR for Celtic matches? Sevco set a precedent by demanding that Collum should not be involved in their matches. Not only did they not get a reprimand or fine for suggesting bias or incompetence as Brendan did of Beaton, they were actually granted their wish by the SFA. So Celtic can make this demand now without fear of consequence.
Great post DannyGal…
But But But tragically we have Lucan…
Where’s Paddy Stewart when you need him…
When The Sevco Huns win the title he will have been their star player in their (albeit cheated) triumph !
We get your point Michael. Essential historical victories in small skirmishes that alas didn’t gain any ground.
However the opposition forces are comprised of scores of bodies trained to the same level and from their ranks the troopers that know the signs, the secret code the shared upbringing and heritage form the LRA which runs Refereeing in Scotland. In theory the LRA are answerable to the SFA, their employer. In practice they are answerable to no one.
They are the elite, corrupt, bigoted with an ‘esprit de corps’ that shields them from meaningful sanctions. Their sympathetic brothers in the SMSM ignore their transgressions on the field of play or when called out the hacks,
broadcasters tender the pathetic alibi of ‘honest mistake’.
The LRA, VAR, The SFA, The SMSM all collude to obfuscate what is seen in broad daylight. An Organisational Incestuous relationship employed by individuals and groups to provide succour to whatever Club operates out of Ibrox.
It’s as if 2012 never happened and 1690 still rules Scotia.
The best wee bigoted country inra wurld.
Ma erse.