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Celtic fall silent over SFA’s refereeing scandal

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Imagine the outcry in England if the Football Association had promoted through their ranks to the highest grade a match referee who had made offensive social media posts about Pep Guardiola alongside homophobic and sectarian comments?

Sky News would be parked outside Wembley Stadium demanding answers from the FA, questions would be raised in Westminster, sponsors would be rushing to demand answers and resignations.

In 2014 the Scottish Football Association were made aware of such posts from Stephen Brown, then a mid ranking match official working in the minor grades of the game.

For reasons known only to himself Brown decided to post hateful comments about Neil Lennon on Facebook as well as offensive sectarian and homophobic posts.

These views came to light a few weeks ago in the Daily Mail. Since then there has been no follow up, not even in the Daily Mail to explain to their readers how Brown advanced to take charge of fixtures in League One, League Two and in the Reserve League last season.

Brown isn’t the problem in this case, the real issue is who promoted him through the ranks and who suddenly decided that this scandal couldn’t continue into the new season with the shamed match official in line to take charge of matches in the top flight.

Whether the plug was pulled because his views are offensive or fear that Brown could be exposed or compromised is unclear.

On June 15 the Daily Mail broke the news:

A top Scots referee has stepped down over historic offensive Facebook messages concerning Celtic and their manager Neil Lennon and apologised for his actions.

Stephen Brown, 35, posted a series of unsavoury sectarian, discriminatory and homophobic social media posts. The messages, seen by Sportsmail and now deleted, date back to 2010.

The report added:

The independent panel issued only a censure following a disciplinary hearing and Brown’s immediate offer to resign was turned down by his local referee association. It’s understood the SFA were ‘surprised’ by the tribunal outcome but bound by the independent finding at the time.

Progressing through the refereeing ranks the official became eligible to officiate at games involving both Celtic and Rangers when he reached Category 1 status this summer.

But, under the governing body’s Equality, Diversity and Inclusion Plan the position of one of the rising stars of Scottish refereeing has effectively become untenable – with Chief Executive Ian Maxwell clear that the historic baggage would make it impossible for Brown to take charge of matches involving or with implications for the Old Firm.

While the SFA may have been ‘surprised’ that Brown’s resignation wasn’t accepted, someone within the Referee Department opted to promote the offending official. Last season he refereed two Celtic matches in the Reserve League despite the stain on his character.

Whoever decided to promote Brown appears to remain in place on the SFA payroll. The SFA seem to be a law unto themselves, accountable to no-one.

While the decisions to promote Brown is bad enough the bigger issue is that there are people inside the SFA that think his views are acceptable, these people will be making decisions on who gets appointed for fixtures in the season ahead.

On June 26 I emailed Celtic’s Communications Manager expecting the club to be concerned about the process that promoted Brown. The email wasn’t even acknowledged.

Two follow up emails were also ignored which is strange. On January 28 I was sent a text message from the Communications Manager relating to a transfer story that I had published.

Celtic appear to have no interest in reforming a process that promoted someone who made offensive social media posts about Neil Lennon. Last season Scott McKenna, Dolly Menga, Steven McLean, Darnell Johnson and Ryan Kent were all given retrospective red cards for offences missed by officials in matches against Celtic.

Specsavers are the long standing sponsors of Scottish referees.

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