GLASGOW, SCOTLAND - MARCH 14: Motherwell's Emmanuel Longelo fouls Celtic's Daizen Maeda (L) which leads to VAR awarding a penalty during a William Hill Premiership match between Celtic and Motherwell at Celtic Park, on March 14, 2026, in Glasgow, Scotland. (Photo by Rob Casey/SNS Group via Getty Images)
I think all of us have a case of the smiles watching the media in full meltdown over some of the decisions of the last few weeks. It is moon-howling stuff, all of it. As sick as we are of some of it, we would be lying if we did not admit that parts of it are very funny too.
The press are in uproar again over decisions Celtic have received and the ones the Ibrox club did not get. It is always the same story. It is boring. But it is amusing in its own way as well.
You have to admire the consistency.
There are things in life you wish were predictable and they are not. This is predictable. This one you could put the mortgage on. Whenever Celtic get a big result and a major decision goes our way in that match, the frustration and anger spreads right across the Scottish press corps and it lasts for days.
Every “expert” they can dig up to explain why the decision was wrong gets consulted. Most of them carry a heavy pro-Ibrox or Tynecastle bias and they blow that trumpet as loudly as they possibly can.
These people are an embarrassment. Their conduct is a disgrace.
The penalty decision at the weekend is nailed on. The only real scandal, if we are looking for one, is that the referee does not give it immediately and waits until VAR forces him to act. If the VAR officials do not flag it, we probably do not get the decision at all.
And that incident happened so close to Beaton that there is simply no way he did not see it.
Yet somehow it is the VAR officials being questioned in some quarters.
You expect nonsense like that on the pro-Ibrox forums, where anything goes and the lunatics run the asylum. That is exactly where a debate like this belongs. Seeing hacks discussing it in the mainstream press is something else entirely.
It is pitiful. It is laughable. These people have absolutely no shame.
We know how this works. How many weeks like this have we had lately? How many over the years? And how many more are we going to see before this season ends?
We have talked a lot about the title race and the way it is being covered. The narrative has been Anyone But Celtic from the start. The only reason the media is so enthusiastic about Hearts right now is because if Hearts keep their heads, Celtic do not win the league.
Look at how the hacks handled yesterday.
Suddenly it is the Ibrox club who are back in the title race, as though the results of February simply did not happen.
Celtic have just beaten Motherwell, who many people agree have been playing the best football in the league for weeks. We beat them well. Other than Hibs, which team in this league is currently showing better form than Celtic?
That is why some of the headlines about the Ibrox club closing the gap on Hearts are so ridiculous. If the Ibrox club had not produced an awful run of results over the last month, they might already be ahead of Hearts.
Instead they scraped past St Mirren, a club currently without a manager, and the media has decided that this suddenly proves they are serious contenders again.
Let them have their little moment.
We still have three reasonably navigable fixtures before the split. We will not assume anything, because football does not work like that, but they are games Celtic should be capable of winning. After the split the big matches are all at home.
That should give us confidence.
But the noise around referees and officiating is not meaningless, and it would be foolish to ignore it. Because it is all pointing in one direction.
This is where the pressure is going to be applied.
The hacks will keep hammering away at officials over the number of key decisions Celtic have received. That pressure is designed to land somewhere. The media works on the SFA just as effectively as it works on public opinion.
We have seen this before.
Think back to the red card narrative. Week after week the media hammered away at the idea that Celtic players were escaping punishment. Suddenly the red cards started appearing.
That was no coincidence.
Now they are banging the drum about Oxley-Chamberlain and insisting he should have seen red. It is the same tactic all over again.
Celtic should always be complaining about decisions. Every week if necessary. But it is especially important to do it when you are winning.
When you are winning nobody can accuse you of deflecting. Nobody can claim sour grapes. Nobody can say you are looking for excuses.
And the truth is that Celtic have been on the wrong end of some astonishing decisions this season.
People on the Ibrox forums can complain all they want about VAR lines and offside calls. But if someone can show me a closer VAR decision than the one that went against Celtic in the cup quarter final they will win the grand prize.
This is the stage of the season where the pressure on officials will be at its highest.
A straight fight between Celtic and the Ibrox club would be difficult enough. But there are other dynamics at play as well. The SFA clearly believes there is a vested interest for Scottish football in Hearts remaining in the title race.
Do not underestimate how much that might matter.
Officials are being pushed hard right now and the pressure is obvious.
Later on I am going to write about Beaton specifically. But for now it is worth remembering that the coverage we are seeing is not just a series of emotional reactions to individual decisions.
It is calculated. It is systematic. And it is part of a broader campaign.
Which is exactly why Celtic should have gone on the front foot after Saturday’s match and called Beaton out directly.
There are people on the Ibrox forums who claim Celtic supporters want everything their own way. They say fan media like this is simply about trying to guarantee the big decisions go in our favour.
That is nonsense.
All Celtic supporters want is fairness.
We want the rules applied consistently and decisions judged on their merits. We want every club treated the same.
Because if the playing field is level, Celtic are the best team on it.
And we have absolutely nothing to fear from that.
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Its a bit of a stretch to describe them as “the press”. They’re an RFC* supporters club masquerading as sports journalists or with some they know their target audience hence their output.
I love seeing their reactions and false outrage when things go our way.
I usually do a little tour of the media sports pages and todays Sun had idiot man Swinney condemning Balaclava wearers of going to the game with “malicious intent” but quite cleverly they had Celtic fans photo as the example.
Any Catholic voting SNP is a turkey voting for Christmas and remember it was Glasgow Council’s SNP that held a civic reception to celebrate 12 year old Sevco’s 150th anniversary.
Gie’s peace, tell me what Party you are voting for, who do you think will do a better job for ordinary people with limited powers on real bread and butter policies, We’ve had the Tory Party in Westminster for 14 years where we had the infamous five Cameron, May, Johnston, Truss and Sunak at Westminster making a mess of the country. Now we have a weak guy called Starmer at Westminster, leader of what used to be the Labour Party, backtracking every week on his original policies.
I’m into football, but the day my vote is cast on what team got a civic reception or not is the day I’ll give up voting.
You sound like a narrow minded sectarian fool, this is a football site not a Catholic site,
I support Independence for future generations in Scotland, we’ve had 319 years of rule from Westminster and that’s got us where we are today. The Westminster English Parliament has always encouraged a divide and rule policy all over the British Empire, and in the Celtic nations.
I do not believe in religion nor do I believe in having a buffoon like John Swinney lead the country. A man responsible for at least 5 of the biggest disasters in Scottish history e.g., Edinburgh trams fiasco. School for Excellence which ensures the exact opposite and the rest. The upside is we have a wee flag to wave.
He is there by default as Sturgeon and her husband should be in Jail and maybe it will happen for the latter.
Read your history as we became a union because the English paid off out national debt of £300,000 after the disaster of the Darien Scheme granted one they helped to destroy .
You only have to ask yourself one question. Do you think that Protestant dominance will disappear overnight if we elect for independence or will it just allow them to continue in a little back water without checks like Ulster did for years.
This parcel of rogues sold Scotland’s soul for a £600,000 camper van.
I despair.
That should have read £600,000 and a camper van.
Get your facts right, the Edinburgh trams project was inherited by the minority SNP Government in 2007. They proposed cancelling the project, but being a minority Government were out voted in the Parliament. Edinburgh City Council were in charge of the work and are the majority owners of Edinburgh Trams Ltd to this day. Quite honestly I don’t know what your on about.
I know my history OK, yep your right Scotland was sold down the river by a “Parcel of Rogues” who were a very small group of the nobility, in an undemocratic country of its day. We were then sold down the river by the Westminster Government in the 1970/80’s when they used our oil money to destroy Scottish manufacturing industry and with it the social fabric of the Scottish Nation.
Independence won’t change the country overnight but it will begin the change.
You say that you don’t believe in Religion but seem fixated by it, Scotland is a Protestant country in name only. The numbers attending Church these days is very small and Scotland is more or less a secular country. I agree there are still pockets of anti Catholic and anti Irish sentiment especially in Football and the Media. It is a lot less than it was and in my opinion would disappear eventually with Independence being a catalyst.
To compare us with the occupied six counties of Ireland and calling it Ulster, makes me wonder if you know your history. I would just point out the 3 counties of Ulster are in the Irish Republic and reunification of the six counties with the rest of Ireland is coming.
A PR elected Independent Scottish Government will be truly Democratic, unlike the FPTP Westminster Government. You just go on voting for a toothless Labour Party who are trying hard to take the place of the old Tory Party. Incidentally can you not see that it was the Sun Newspaper who published a photo of Celtic fans in Balaclavas, nothing to do with Swinney.
It seems you did neither read nor understood what I said for the most part.
I will say this then John Swinney is there by default because of the corruption of the rest of the Party and he is no doubt a nice man but a classic example of the idea that we are all promoted to the our own level of incompetence.
The “Named Person ” project was so bad a judge said it was the worst case of abuse of governmental power he had ever seen. JS’s answer was to say he was pressing ahead with it although he had to give in in the end. The man is moronic.
So he is responsible for 4 of the worst economic disasters then.
Of course the Celtic photo was the Sun’s editor choice but the fact that Swinney did not mention “Rangers” by name and played the old generality ploy to protect the Ibrox club.
Your main misunderstanding comes by not recognising my point was that we were independent once and had to crawl cap in hand to the English to bale us out as will an Independent Scotland within a few years. We are fractured socially and economically which can only get worse on our own.
‘Pro-Ibrox forums’
‘Mainstream media’
Same thing.
Beaton improving our yellow card tally ,so he’ll have that as consolation.
Cgreen123 @ 12.43pm…
I think that Swinney has the charisma of a wet wipe but he surely cannot be wrong in calling out football fans who enter through a turnstile to watch a match with a balaclava over their faces…
In this case it’s clear as crystal that The Scummy Scottish Sun (that you foolishly keep alive by purchasing) have reeled you in hook line and sinker by making the subject about Celtic ‘fans’
Whilst I most definitely agree about the lies regarding Sevco (they are after all only 13 years and 230 days old as of today) I still think The SNP are the best option though I’d far prefer a more radical party as an option like a Scottish Sinn Fein type…
That said – I’m hoping that you’ll be voting for your namesake as in Green Party as Labour, Conservative, Liberal Democrat and Reform are all Butchers Apron loving Bastards of the highest order and being a Celtic supporter that’d place yourself and any other Hoops fan voting for The Butchers Apron loving bunch in the very ‘strange’ category for sure !
Clach, my point was whether by his permission or not his declaration was accompanied by Celtic fans in Balaclavas. Twas ever thus and ever will be in Scotland, independent or not.
The Green Party are insane and my parents would be turning in their grave should I vote Tory so I am afraid as usual it will be for the worst Labour Party in history.
Cgreen123 @ 8.24pm…
Your first paragraph… As you say ‘twas ever this with The Scummy Scottish Football Media and will be and why I’d rather cease to live on this earth than support The Scummy’s financially now or ever going forward…
I just want them unemployed and I think I’ll get that dearest desire sooner rather than later thankfully…
Regarding the politics – Far be it from me to tell you how to vote but Labour either the best or in your own opinion the worst in history are associated with a flag of evil, death and oceans of blood across many continents in our world…
That flag is The Union Jack – The BUTCHERS APRON !