DUNDEE, SCOTLAND - JANUARY 11: Assistant referee and MSP Douglas Ross arrives before the Premier League match between Dundee and Heart of Midlothian at Dens Park on January 11, 2026 in Dundee, United Kingdom. (Photo by Malcolm Mackenzie/Getty Images)
The KMI panel, which we have widely derided on this blog, and not for nothing, has delivered its verdict on three of the contentious incidents from Celtic’s game at Easter Road.
It thinks Joe Newell’s equaliser should have stood, which I think is a barmy decision. It agrees that the on-field decision to disallow Celtic’s opener was ridiculous. It also agrees that Celtic should have had a penalty for that incredible push into the advertising boards, an incident so obvious that it beggars belief the referee was not even called over to the VAR screen.
The KMI panel itself has no real authority. It has no teeth whatsoever. That is why I always feel comfortable ignoring its verdicts when they deserve to be ignored. Much more interesting will be the moment Willie Collum has to come out and talk about these decisions himself, and in some way defend them.
I am very much looking forward to that.
Because here is the thing. If Celtic’s first goal had stayed chopped off, or if we had failed to find a second goal after that penalty was denied, those two decisions could have cost us the league.
At this stage of the season, it is not enough to apologise after the fact. It is not enough to say, “Oh well, the officials got that one wrong.”
Not now. Not with this much at stake.
It is not for nothing that Douglas Ross is getting pilloried for his decision. It is not for nothing that most people are aghast that the penalty was not given. It is not for nothing that many people hearing the verdict on the handball are equally astonished that the goal was allowed to stand.
These are not small matters. These are not minor mistakes. This is an absolutely atrocious set of circumstances.
These are the kind of errors that should see referees demoted, because with so much at stake and so much depending on them getting things right, there has to be accountability. You might be able to get away with decisions this bad early in a campaign, although even that is debatable. But now? At the sharp end? With everything on the line?
It is disgusting.
Imagine you are a Celtic director. Imagine you are a Celtic investor. Someone from the SFA comes to you at the end of the season and says, “You know that decision in the Hibs game? The one that cost you title? Well, that was the wrong one. Sorry.”
You are standing there knowing that decision has cost you, and the club, a lot of money.
How are you supposed to feel about that?
How are you supposed to wrap your brain around it? How are you supposed to process it? Are you supposed to shrug and say, “That’s fine. Mistakes happen”?
Or would you perhaps want some form of accountability?
Would you perhaps want to see heads roll? Would you want sanctions imposed? Would you even want some form of compensation from the governing body?
Of course you would.
You would be right to want it, too. You would be right to be outraged at some mealy-mouthed, cack-handed explanation after the fact for something we all knew at the time was a deplorable call.
No wonder managers rage over this stuff.
Clubs lose money and managers lose jobs because of decisions like these. In any other walk of life, this would not be hand-waved away. It would be called what it is: gross incompetence. Some people would call it something worse, but let us stick with gross incompetence for now.
Because gross incompetence in the workplace usually has consequences.
The only reason it does not here is that these decisions do not actually cost the SFA. They cost the clubs on the end of them.
So maybe it is safe to say the SFA just does not care enough.
If its officials make mistakes, so what? Someone else pays the price. The SFA does not. Maybe that is the real problem. Maybe nobody has ever made the SFA properly pay for these decisions.
It is high time officiating was taken out of the hands of the governing body and put into some sort of private, accountable structure, as happens in England.
Yes, the Premier League owns the refereeing company there, but that is kind of the point. The officials know who they serve. They serve the clubs. They serve the competition. There are consequences for failure.
Scottish officials do not serve the interests of the clubs.
They serve the interests of the SFA.
This has been a particularly embarrassing year to be a Scottish official. Being left out of the World Cup entirely is a very clear message about how they are rated outside this parochial little land. FIFA’s list for the 2026 World Cup reportedly includes 52 referees, 88 assistant referees and 30 video match officials. Not one Scot made the cut.
That should shame the whole system.
The SFA has proved incompetent when it comes to dealing with officials. It has proved incompetent when it comes to marking its own homework. We should not let it do that for one more day.
It is time the clubs got together and did something about this.
Because it is the clubs who are paying for it. Had Celtic been the victims of those decisions on a day when we lost, had those decisions cost us a shot at this title, the outrage would have been off the charts, and rightly so.
But there would have been no restitution.
Nobody would have lost their job. The SFA would not have compensated Celtic by one penny for making the mistakes. There would have been the usual explanations, the usual vague admissions, the usual “lessons will be learned” garbage, and then everyone would have been expected to move on.
That is the problem. They get a free ride. It is time it ended.
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Just Fuckin Watch…
Celtic have three CRITICAL games in a week and a helluva lot more than The Hibernian debacle is on it’s way down the sewer pipe towards us…
Why has Lucan said Fuck All…
Look at the screeching that Patrick Stewart of Sevco did after The League Cup Semi Final – They bent to Sevco’s will thereafter and have crooked them so many points that they’re still in contention for a title triumph and a potential £40 million jackpot…
Watch the atrocities coming down the pipe to Celtic this week…
BECAUSE IT WILL FUCKIN HAPPEN !
All three decisions were wrong and they are insulting our intelligence by claiming the Hibs hand ball goal was inconclusive. Cheating fuckers, doing it right in our faces, and getting away with it.
The board isn’t bothered by any of this.
They’ll never change.
We’ve have a temporary chairman and a temporary manager.
We are paying a fortune for a striker and a midfielder who aren’t fit despite being here for months.
What other club acts like this?
Why was Muir bagged when he couldn’t justify chopping Diazen’s goal off last year and yet Ross isn’t even put on the spot for guessing our goal was offside?
Was Robertson watching a box-set instead of the game at Hibs ?
We could still lose the league if a goal would win it for us ie the penalty not awarded.
It’s not acceptable.
I feel a bit uncomfortable about complaining about decisions even after you’ve won the 3 points, seems more like sevco paranoia complex to me.
If the officials were so hell bent on
denying Celtic a victory then they would have made it happen 100%!
The VAR confirmation of Newell’s goal and the shove on Nygren would have seemlessly translated into an offside decision for Maeda’s goal and a yellow card for O’Hara, resulting in a draw or a win for Hibs.
If you don’t realise that then then you’re mimicking the sevco shite you also keep complaining about. FFS grow a pair!
The officials can only go so far mate, they can’t magic Ross 4 yards up with the play and draw an obvious slanty angle to make it offside.
Are you suggesting Ross wasn’t trying to get our goal disallowed?
Are you suggesting Robertson wasn’t watching a box-set rather than the Hibs box when Benji was pushed ?
Really Danny? When you complain about decisions after your team gets beaten it smacks of bitterness and sour grapes, surely? The time to complain of injustices is when you win and that therefore holds more sway.
DannyGal @ 6.49pm…
I have no gripes about Sevco complaining about an injustice if it is indeed injust…
I want no fuckin charity from these cheating bastards with whistles flags and monitors, not now not ever ever ever…
But to take the moral high ground and say fuck all…
Na da, na da, that’s back of the bus pish pot Jerker in my humble opinion…
As Glenn Campbell sang “Nice Guys get washed away like the snow and the rain”
Us nice guys have been washed away enough to still see Sevco as danger in this title race unless Hearts win tonight !
DannyGal, 4 mistakes in one game and we should just suck it up, When you win the game that’s the time to speak up. Those officials decided that overturning 2 wrong decisions was our lot for the day. That’s not acceptable.
Aye! And that ref who had to upgrade the yellow card to red was the very same incompetent c@nt who officiated just a week or so before at the Aberdeen v Falkirk game where he failed to red card a Dons player for smashing his forearm into the back of the head of a Falkirk player. That was violent conduct. Gollum covered it in his monthly VAR show farce on YouTube. And the Hibs game was not the first time Celtic have been on the receiving end of that official’s incompetence.
James, these incompetent cheats’ decisions may yet very well cost us the title if this goes down to goal difference. But you’re right. Something has to happen. There has to be accountability.
Volp makes a good point further up this thread. Why has Douglas Ross not been dealt with? And as for this “inconclusive” utter pish with the Hibs handball equaliser. The only folk on this planet who could not see it were the VAR cheats. It was a double handball. Hits his upper arm then hits his wrist/hand. Even the Hibs player was surprised it was allowed to stand as his facial expressions indicated.
Scottish football officials are grossly incompetent if not cheats. Not a single official selected to go to this years World Cup tells us all everything we need to know. And it’s all taking place under Wee Willie Gollum’s watch. So Gollum can dress it up all he likes. Celtic were hampered that day by the most inept officiating this season so far.
The Celtic support have slaughtered the Tory for years and even produced a banner for him. If anyone thinks that didn’t affect him in some way, and he’s not forgotten this fact, they don’t understand the nature of human beings. He doesn’t like us, just like a few of the other officials. I’m not into conspiracies, but by feck we would have the remit for it due to the officiating. As for the guys in ties at the SFA, we know the drill with them. Worshipping strange dieties in their secret societies, enough said.
Okay guys, hands up I watched those incidents again and they are conclusively wrong decisions on field and on VAR. I was delighted with the three points under pressure and was surprised at the outcry.
I see that MON called Willie Collum for explanations, he said that’s the first time he’s done that after a match, even though his side won, so yes, those decisions had to be questioned and yes, Douglas Ross didn’t want Maeda’s goal to stand.
I’ll look more closely before commenting in future!