Celtic silent on the Bobby Madden issue

At the Celtic AGM in November, Ian Bankier claimed that the club had deep concerns about Scottish referees. 

The hoops chairman doesn’t like getting questioned, normally Peter Lawwell is the focus at the AGM but after he took a back seat Bankier found himself uncomfortably in the spotlight. 

After being asked why the was no Financial Fair Play in the Scottish game Bankier didn’t fancy any more questioning along those lines. 

He flannelled when asked about Cameron Carter-Vickers being booked by Nick Walsh for getting kicked twice, the final question was about Bobby Madden. 

At that point the Lanarkshire based referee had been appointed for three of Celtic’s first 12 SPFL Premiership fixtures. From a pool of 16 referees it seemed strange that one ref had been given 25% of Celtic’s matches. 

When the 27 fouls awarded against Celtic at Aberdeen was highlighted, despite having 61% possession, Bankier gave his deep concern reply, it was picked up and reported on by some of Celtic’s media partners. 

Despite the deep concern of the chairman Madden continues to get a far from random number of Celtic matches. 

On December 2 it was the home match with Hearts and on the 26th St Johnstone away. 

Willie Collum, who has only refereed one SPFL match for the club from Ibrox this season was down for the January 2 derby match, for reasons unexplained he has been replaced by Madden for tomorrow’s match. His 6th Celtic match in 24 SPFL fixtures. 

With Bankier’s deep concern on issues on the record, Video Celts contacted Michael Nicholson about the repeat appointments of Madden, unfortunately he has declined to reply. 

Tomorrow’s match will be Madden’s 13th Premiership match of the season, just short of 50% of them have involved Celtic. Last February the SFA dropped him at short notice from the away match at Ross County after they were informed that he had been a close contact of David Roome who had tested positive after a match in Greece.