Former Celtic captain Tom Boyd has backed the club’s case in demanding questions about refereeing matters this season.
The exact content of discussions between Celtic and the SFA are unclear but after George Peat confirmed the story to the BBC it’s been open season with all sorts of speculation about what Celtic have questioned.
Boyd captained Celtic through many dramas on the park and knows the ways of the refereeing world where his brother reached the heights of refereeing SPL reserve matches.
The whole refereeing debate will dominate the build up to Sunday’s Rangers-Celtic match with Boyd providing evidence of what he refers to as mystifying decisions.
“On the evidence of what we have seen this season there has been evidence of a lot of outrageous decisions,” Boyd told the BBC.
“That’s not just coming from Celtic supporters, you have to look at the comments of managers within the Premier League who have echoed some of the feelings of Celtic supporters.
“Craig Levein, when he was Dundee United managed, said that he was disappointed that Darren Dods didn’t hold onto the ball with both hands when giving away what should have been a penalty.
“Eddie May when he was the Falkirk manager also said that Celtic should have had a stonewall penalty.
“Certainly this season Celtic have had been far the victims of lot of honest mistakes.”
Discussing the timing of this story Boyd laughed: “I would imagine that Sir Alex Ferguson would have been proud of the timing of this.
“It’s came out at this time by George Peat coming out and having a say, reacting to a Celtic source giving it to the BBC.
“For me this is not before time. This is something that should have been looked into. Obviously Celtic and the SFA are having discussions but is there any good time for anything like this to come out?
“It’s came out at this stage and for me Celtic are doing the right thing by going to the SFA and just querying about the incompetentsy of referees this season.”
Asked about any possibility of bias from the SFA Boyd quickly distanced himself from that suggestion.
He replied: “No, certainly not, I think that there is a helluva lot of incompetency by referees this season.
“There has certainly been irregularities going by the letter of the law in things like goal celebrations. Penalty decisions certainly haven’t been equal over the course and that’ll have been something that Celtic have highlighted in their approach to the SFA.
“There are other decisions through the course of the season which seem to be mystifying, incidents like Lafferty’s challenge on Andreas Hinkel in the last Old Firm game which just earned him a yellow card. Everybody would have seen that that should have been a straight red card.
“There have certainly been a higher proportion of incidents that have gone against Celtic and they have done the right thing by going to the SFA and expressing their concerns that things seem to be against them this season.”
Tom Boyd interview (only viewable in the UK)