Celtic cannot simply accept the “ten seconds silence” on the Hibs VAR audio.

Sometimes, rarely, in a season, everything turns on a single decision. It does not always feel that way at the time, but when you look back, you can see it clearly. Celtic’s defeat to Hibernian may well prove to be one of those moments.

We’re 1-1 at Celtic Park, and pressing. There is an incident. The whole ground holds its breath, thinking, “Penalty to Celtic.” It is never given. At the time, we did not know why.

If that penalty is given, if Celtic score, if the game swings our way, we are probably sitting here today talking about a completely different league table. We are talking about a different title race. We are talking about momentum shifting at precisely the moment it matters most. At this stage of the season, decisions like this have to be right.

This one wasn’t. We know it wasn’t because Collum admitted it. We have now heard the VAR audio from that moment in the Hibs game, and what it reveals is… interesting.

The officials clearly identify that there is contact. There is even an acknowledgement of a hold. The kind of language you would normally expect to lead to the referee being sent to the monitor. That is how this is supposed to work.

That is what VAR is there for.

And then…

There is a pause. A silence. Not a long one. About ten seconds. But long enough to stand out. Long enough that, when you hear it, you notice it immediately. Then, after that silence, the conclusion: “Not enough.”

Decision made. Game moves on.

Now, I am not suggesting anything improper. Let’s get that on the record straight away.

But I will say this.

That ten-second gap has a certain familiarity to it. A certain historical echo. A certain… Nixonian quality. You know the one.

The famous 18-minute gap. The part of the tape where, inconveniently, the most important part of the conversation just isn’t there.

Here, we don’t have missing audio. We have something else. We have a moment where the officials talk through an incident in terms that seem to point in one direction, fall silent, and then emerge with a decision that points in the opposite one.

When you are dealing with decisions like this, at this stage of the season, there should not be moments that leave people asking questions. There should not be gaps, however small, where the reasoning feels unclear. There should not be situations where what we hear up to a point does not match what comes after it.

This is not about conspiracy. This is about standards.

Once again, this game has fallen so far beneath them that it stinks.

If VAR is going to be used, if audio is going to be released, if transparency is going to be the selling point, then it has to make sense. It has to be coherent. It has to stand up. Strip away the black humour. Strip away the Nixon reference and the ten-second gag.

What remains is simple.

A potentially title-defining moment where officials describe an incident in a way that suggests they will make the correct call, only for them to go the other way, and leave a gap where the explanation should be.

At this stage of the season, that is not good enough. Not even close.

Once again, we get faux sympathy after the fact. A half-apology. But accountability? None. There is none, and there will be none until clubs start pushing for it and the media starts demanding it. Not selectively. Not once in a blue moon when it affects their preferred narrative. Across the board. Every week. Every bad call.

I wrote earlier about how much the Ibrox club are preparing to push for reform. The idea that it might be them, and not us, leading that charge is frankly embarrassing. But the pure and simple truth of it is that reform is needed.

There has to be accountability.

Officials who make mistakes like these repeatedly have to face consequences. It is the only way to maintain standards. It is the only way to stop them sliding further. Right now, Scottish football seems more interested in accepting these failures than eradicating them.

That cannot continue.

A title race like this is worth tens of millions of pounds. I’ll go further than that. If this ends as tight as it looks, then second place is not guaranteed. The consequences are enormous. Different competitions. Different revenues.

Hell we’re talking about different futures.

It makes no sense for us to keep leaving our fate in the hands of people we do not trust. Whether that mistrust comes from a belief in bias or from a belief in incompetence does not really matter. We all agree on the basic principle.

Unless something changes, someone will lose out on something significant. It will probably be Celtic.

With the stakes this high, with the margins this fine, that ten-second silence should not exist. It should be unthinkable.

Here, it is not only “thinkable”; the worst part is that none of us are even surprised anymore.

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