Ronny Deila has hit out at the random justice handed out by the SFA.
After his first competitive game, away to St Johnstone, Derk Boerrigter was given a retrospective two match ban for simulation.
Rather than appeal the decision Deila accepted the ruling believing that other incidents would be dealt with in the same manner.
The SFA have overturned a number of red cards, usually from games refereed by Willie Collum, but have been slow to deal with cases of simulation which appear on a weekly basis.
Dundee United earned a penalty against Celtic when Aidan Connolly hit the deck with no obvious contact with referee Craig Thomson pointing to the penalty spot without hesitation. No action was taken against Anthony Stokes for the challenge.
After watching a catalogue of baffling decisions Deila said: “I saw the penalty, you see what you see and it’s a dive of course.
“I think that we are the only team in Scotland that have had a suspension for diving, Derk Boerrighter got two or three games and I haven’t seen that since, hopefully it is for every team.
“I accept that people make mistakes. But if we have a rule where people look at things afterwards then it has to be the other way around also.
“I don’t see anybody else getting suspensions. I can’t understand that we are the worst at this in the league and nobody else is doing anything.”
In December on loan St Johnstone striker Brian Graham was given a two match suspension for simulation but in the heat of the moment it’s understandable if the Norwegian doesn’t have every fact to hand.
Fresh from his disastrous performance in the League Cup semi-final between Celtic and Sevco Craig Thomson gave another substandard display demonstrating that he is no longer capable of refereeing the top domestic matches.
After ten minutes he watched Scott Brown and Nadir Ciftci clash midway inside the Dundee United half allowing play to continue when a free kick and two yellow cards would have put a lid on frustrations.
As play continued Calum Butcher and Virgil van Dijk got involved with each other in another incident when two yellow cards would have imposed some authority on the players.
With neither incident noted by Thomson his assistant Graham Chambers raced onto the park to get involved as the game came to a halt.
Television viewers clearly saw Thomson ask Chambers if it was two players to go off- not only did Chambers over react to the incident he was unable to identify the Dundee United player involved with Paul Paton red carded!
It is expected that both clubs will appeal the red cards- how the SFA deal with Brown and Ciftci remains to be seen. A lengthy spell in the lower divisions would be the best remedy for Thomson and Chambers even though League One and League Two clubs would rightly ask why they have to put up with two ego’s clearly incapable of applying the laws of the game.
Scottish Cup convention means that Thomson should referee the replay, hopefully the bungling referee can find a coarse in La Manga that would benefit from his presence.
