Peter Lawwell has spectacularly backed down in his request for transparency from the SFA over refereeing matters.
In the last game of 2018, Ryan Christie, Scott Brown and Tony Ralston were all physically attacked by Alfredo Morelos with no action taken by referee John Beaton.
Retrospective action was expected but incredibly the SFA Compliance Officer decided on no further action despite the obvious attacks on Celtic players.
Six days after the match Celtic came out with a statement, as some cynical fans anticipated there was no follow up with the SFA ignoring the request for a public explanation and transparency.
On January 4 Celtic issued a statement which asked:
In order to fully understand what is going on, Celtic, our supporters, Scottish clubs and the general Scottish football public need transparency in these matters, and we therefore call on the Scottish FA to allow the referee, John Beaton, to explain these decisions publicly as well as any match officials involved in other similar circumstances.
In the meantime, we have requested a meeting with Scottish FA Chief Executive, Ian Maxwell, and the Association’s Head of Refereeing.
Covering today’s question at the AGM The Sun reports:
THE board are asked whether there was any follow-up to their blistering statement about referee John Beaton. Celtic blasted the whistler and called on him to explain his decisions after last December’s defeat to Rangers.
Lawwell answers that the club had a meeting concerning this and received an explanation. But he insists it was a private meeting and therefore a private matter. He adds that it is difficult to talk about individual referees, decisions and matches.
After demanding transparency from the SFA it seems that Lawwell has been satisfied by a private meeting and won’t comment on individual referees.
So far this season Beaton has been in charge of two Celtic matches with Tom Boyd highly critical of his performance in the League Cup tie against Dunfermline.
Last season Scott McKenna, Steven MacLean, Dolly Menga, Ryan Kent and Darnell Johnson were all given retrospective red cards following mistakes by referees in matches against Celtic.
