hackwatching

scottish refs - enogh is enough

Yet another yellow card for a Celtic player, this time against Dundee United at Celtic Park (February 20th).

Robbie Keane joins an illustrious and growing list of players booked for petty dissent, kicking the ball away or celebrating a goal - Keane, Rasmussen, Vennegoor of Hesselink, McGeady, Bellamy.

Mysteriously this list consists entirely of Celtic players. Just a coincidence of course; any person of sound-mind will tell you to put your natural paranoiac proclivities to rest.

This sparked the following thread that I felt compelled to respond to on an internet blog I came across:

JUST BECAUSE WE ARE PARANOID, DON’T MEAN THEY ARE NOT AFTER US

Michael Greenwell, Word Press
February 20, 2010

This is the first thing I have done about Celtic (fc) in a while and it is just a small comment.

Watched the game today and saw Robbie Keane our new superstar score the winner.

I also saw his disbelief at the yellow card he got. I shared that.

I know he is only here on loan for a few months so if he is the big Celtic fan he professes to be then the best thing he could do for Celtic and Scottish football in general when he goes back to England is to make a comment on the Scottish game.

I don’t mean about the quality. He can call it great or terrible and I don’t really care. What I would like to see him talk about ia the quality of refereeing..which is poor…but strangely always seem to be poorer on one side.

There are just too many examples to go into right now but if Robbie wants to leave a legacy then that should be it.

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Bigrab February 21, 2010 at 09:21

Oh dear Michael. Refereeing could be better but every supporter sees the game through whatever colour glasses their team plays in. A few weeks ago the Celtic fans were screaming blue murder about a decision that hadn’t gone their way, conveniently forgetting that a perfectly good Hamilton goal had been disallowed at Celtic Park the previous week.

Celtic’s problems aren’t down to referees. They are down to the fact that they have been poor this season and the manager has decided to ship out some pretty decent players (Robson, Caldwell,McManus and McDonald for example) and bring in loan signings (building for the future?)
Robbie Keane’s best bet when he goes back south is to say zippo. Otherwise he’ll be seen as yet another regular patron of that well known Glasgow eaterie The Ubiquitous Chip on the Shoulder.
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tonybananas February 21, 2010 at 10:38

Ah, necessary illusions. I refer here to the predictable parrott response from bigrab to the effect that at least “everything evens itself out over the season”, if not, Celtic get more than their fair share of “dodgy” decisions.

’d be interested to know when FIFA changed the rules to allow blatant use of the arm in the act of scoring “a perfectly good [Hamilton] goal”? I wonder what colour of glasses bigrab wears?

Now obviously I will be derided as “paranoid” or a patron of the ubiquitous chip on the shoulder like Robbie Keane, Martin O’Neill, Tony Mowbray, Lee Richardson, Ajax scouts etc etc, for that is the beauty of good propaganda. However, I think it reasonable to draw attention to a number of blatantly incorrect decisions by referees this season.

Note - not “debatable”, ”questionable” or “dodgy” but blatantly incorrect, of the sort where any reasonable person is left wondering, “what the hell is the referee playing at??” (Bias to Rangers of course being automatically discounted by all sound-minded people, Scottish referees belonging to that rare demographic group - “Old Firm supporters”).

I feel compelled to draw attention to these because the Scottish media have a curious habit of failing to do so, no doubt another corollary of “Old Firm bias”.

Celtic v Dundee Utd 12 Sep
Referee Steve Conroy refuses to give a penalty to Celtic in the last minute with the score at 1-1 after Darren Dods dives full length in the penalty area and “saves” a Hinkel cross with his arm. Levein later jokes he was disappointed Dods didn’t catch the ball.

Rangers v Celtic 4 Oct
Maloney clearly fouled in the box by Weir = no penalty.
Maloney clearly fouled in the box by Weir again = no penalty and a yellow card for the Celtic player! Eventually the referee was embarrassed into giving Celtic a penalty for another blatant foul, on Zhi this time. Weir stamps on McDonald’s shin = no yellow card, no referral to video review panel. These are reserved for messrs Loovens G and McDonald S of Celtic. Lafferty welcomes Zhi to Scotland by demonstrating his martial arts skills with a flying kick to the groin = no yellow card, no referral to video review panel (see Loovens G, McDonald S).
Celtic fans everywhere are relieved to be the fortunate beneficiaries of such “Old Firm” bias.

Falkirk v Celtic 8 Nov
Celtic “winning” goal in injury time wrongy disallowed for offside

Motherwell v Celtic 12 Dec
Two clear penalties to Celtic denied. With Celtic leading 3-2 ref Charlie Richmond manages to find 5 minutes of injury time but mysteriously cuts this short with Fortune bearing down on the Motherwell goal.

Celtic v Rangers 3 Jan
Fortune goal wrongly disallowed. Lafferty commits violent late foul on Hinkel. Yellow card given not a red. No hint in the media of this being looked at by video review panel (see Loovens G, McDonald S)

Celtic v Falkirk 16 Jan
Artur Boruc bizarrely penalised for handing outside the box when kicking downfield from hand. Free-kick awarded to Falkirk in a dangerous position late in the game with the score 1-1. Replays show he was at least 5 yards INSIDE the box when ball released from hand. In 30 years of watching football I can’t remember a foul being given for this in any other game, far less against a team which is perceived to be getting all the decisions going as part of some mythical “Old Firm bias”. Penalty not given for foul on behind on Fortune. Eddie May admits in interview that it was a penalty

Hamilton v Celtic 30 Jan
Rasmussen booked for leaving the field of play after scoring. Technically a correct decision but a rule that is not applied to any other SPL team, most notably in instances involving MacLean of Aberdeen and Lafferty of Rangers.

Celtic v Hearts 10 Feb
Robbie Keane wrongly flagged for offside FIVE times

Aberdeen v Celtic 13 Feb
Diamond kicks Fortune in the ribs = free-kick to Aberdeen
O’Dea booked for kicking the ball away then later sent off
McGeady booked for kicking the ball away. McLean leaves the field of play after scoring whilst on a yellow card = no 2nd yellow. McLean kicks the ball away in the closing minutes whilst on a yellow = no 2nd yellow card.

17 Feb Rangers v St Mirren
Lafferty kicks the ball away = a lecture from the referre and no yellow card. Presumably the referee is clarifying the 3 strikes and he might think about booking you if you don’t play for Celtic rule

20 Feb Celtic v Dundee Utd
Robbie Keane booked for speaking out of turn to the referee but no-one in Celtic Park is sure if the offence is actually scoring a goal [see Bellamy C at Ibrox 2005).

This doesn’t even consider the favourable treatment afforded to Rangers - i.e. McCulloch not referred to video review panel for elbowing Paton of Aberdeen in the face or karate kicking Barogh of Hearts (see Loovens G, McDonald S or even Bougherra M for how it should be done), Boyd elbowing a player in the face is laughably considered “obstruction” yet the Scottish media don’t consider this a strange.

The latter is another example of how the rules become malleable to suit Rangers: Rangers are allowed to postpone SPL games at will - Aberdeen are not.

The non-negotiable “Old Firm games must not be title deciders” suddenly becomes negotiable due to the terrible threat of a women’s fun run on the same day, which conveniently allows Rangers’ key defender Bougherra to play against Celtic. Why it is OK for Rangers to play any other SPL team at Ibrox on the same day is a question not asked by the media or addressed by anyone.

Boyd elbowing someone in the face is interpreted as “obstruction” thereby allowing Rangers’ top scorer to play against Celtic the next week. Celtic fans everywhere are rapturous at benefiting yet again from “Old Firm bias”.

Of course it is no surprise that referees behave in this way when any comment emanating from Celtic Park on - let’s be generous and call it “sub-standard” refereeing - is lambasted by the media as paranoia/chip on the shoulder etc etc, whereas much stronger criticisms of referees from the manager of the Establishment team, including veiled references to the Irish surname of one official, is reported without comment by the same media and is even considered as fair comment. Any other manager making similar comments would be up before the beaks before you could say “Craig Levein, John Hughes or Gordon Strachan”.

Officials such as Conroy and Murphy (not chosen at random) immediately come under a harsh media glare and are put on the defensive.

After Conroy displeased the Establishment club by sending off Mendes for a harmless flying kick to the abodomen followed by a careless two-footed lunge on a Kilmarnock player, the Scottish media took an unaccustomed interest in the folowing week’s Hibs-Falkirk game which Conroy just happened to be officiating. Headlines of “I Back Whistler Conroy - Hughes” started appearing in the red tops as hacks suddenly developed an unprecedented pre-occupation with the Hibs manager’s opinion of Steve Conroy.

The top story on STV’s Friday evening sports bulletin concerned the Hibs managers’ support for the “under-fire” referee as John Hughes was reported to have “no concerns over Conroy handling the match” following an interview with Raman Barwaj.

Why Steve Conroy was “under-fire” and why Hughes should have any “concerns” were clearly understood by everyone. It’s been a long time since a Hibs-Falkirk match was the top Scottish sports story and it’ll be a long, long time until that is the case again.

The message to Conroy is clear - “We’re watching you. If you’re going to make a mistake on a close-call, you damn well better make sure that mistake benefits the Establishment team. In fact if you’re going to send off one of the Establishment team’s players, it better be because you’ve got no alternative. And while we’re at it, you bette

r not think of giving THEM anything unless you’re damn sure Irishman”.

Of course it is no coincidence Steve Conroy did not come “under fire” after the ridiculous decision not to award a penalty to Celtic on September 12th.

And it goes without saying I will be derided for my blatant paranoia by actually going to the trouble of presenting evidence in support of my point, and I’m sure anyone of sound-mind could go away and find an equal number of instances where Celtic have been wrongly awarded a throw-in, corner or indirect free-kick on the halfway line.

But such is the is the beauty of the Scottish media’s propaganda and the “paranoia” parrott response which underpins it all.

Of course it is also true to say the current Celtic team has a number of deficiencies. However the shortcomings of the Celtic team and ostensible refereeing bias are not mutually exclusive concerns.

As Aldous Huxley said “propagandists accomplish their greatest triumphs, not by doing something, but by refraining from doing. Great is truth, but still greater, from a practical point of view, is silence about truth. By simply not mentioning certain subjects propagandists have influenced opinion much more effectively than they could have done by the most eloquent denunciations, the most compelling of logical rebuttals.”

Celtic fans will know what I mean.

More paranoid ranting available at www.celticparanoia.blogspot.com

 

TONY BANANAS & HACKWATCHER