John Beaton and his colleagues got lots of decisions wrong yesterday, they’ll be able to review it next month when John Fleming takes his merry men for a knees up in Spain disguised as a training exercise.
As they review the action from Ibrox they could perhaps put together a DVD to UEFA to explain why Alfredo Morelos stayed on the park with four incidents worthy of a red card to the casual spectator. The SFA Compliance Officer may have a word with Beaton when she hands out retrospective suspensions.
John Beaton. McGregor “handball” pic.twitter.com/e3bFgyUK3t
— Colm (@cohcfc) December 29, 2018
Missing a player kicking, punching and stamping on opponents is one thing, perhaps honest mistakes from one of Scotland’s leading referees but seeing something that didn’t happen is another matter entirely.
Callum McGregor was Celtic’s best player, the biggest threat to the home club. When he put the ball in the net eagle-eyes David Roome, groomed by Bobby Madden, flagged for offside.
In the last ten minutes of the match McGregor threatened to break up the park, the home defence was stretched and tired.
Scott Arfield lunged at the ball, it sprung up hit McGregor on the face as he raced towards the halfway line in a threatening position. Handball Beaton decided! It wasn’t. Beaton saw something that never happened. Some say that a referee has to be 100% certain to give a decision, how can you be 100% certain that you saw something that never happened?
If the SFA won’t take action on their officials then it’s upto Celtic to speak out and force change, regardless of how it is portrayed by their friends in old media. Three times this season retrospective suspensions have been handed out after incidents in Celtic matches. That stat should be a cause for concern, instead Clancy, Madden and Collum continue to get Celtic matches.
Beaton’s performance at Ibrox was a constant disregard for the rules, he has previous, lots of. The McGregor incident was one of many but inventing incidents that simply didn’t happen ought to be causing concern at every level of the game.
