Steve Conroy has claimed that ‘somehow the SFA know’ which clubs referees support.Â
In January 2010 Conroy refereed his first and last Celtic v Rangers match with his career on a downward spiral thereafter.Â
Later that year Willie Collum awarded a penalty to Rangers at Celtic Park while having his back to the ball and has been a regular for high profile matches and cup finals ever since.Â
Most top matches in Scotland go to referees from Glasgow and Lanarkshire, to people that grew up within 20 miles of Celtic Park and Ibrox and work alongside fans of those clubs.Â
The issue of supporting a club is one that the SFA take a vow of silence on but in an interview with Football Scotland, Conroy gives an insight into the processes involved:Â
Down south if you have an affiliation with a team, you don’t ref them. Up here we all get into the game to be a ref in top games and being from the west of Scotland, more often than not, you support Celtic or Rangers.Â
So if you have an allegiance to one or the other, and you are not allowed to ref them, who is going to be reffing the games?Â
You don’t declare an allegiance, but somehow the SFA know. You know that they know because you get allocated an awful lot of pre-match friendlies involving the team that you supported.Â
Some Celtic supporters might ask ‘what kind of Celtic fan was Steve Conroy that he disallowed a Celtic goal and failed to send off Kyle Lafferty?’ – he was a very upset one.Â
Last week’s Glasgow derby was refereed by Bobby Madden from East Kilbride, yesterday’s match at Motherwell was refereed by Lanarkshire ref John Beaton.Â
It’s been like that for 70yrs git worst since new co arrived as if it was everybody’s fault but rfc going bust so it has brought everbodies against us mentality in every new co supporters household and refs that were brought up in old co house gas got stronger allegiance for new co with the thought they are still old co cause of another man with allegiance to old co belief which should have went to a jury not a lord its splf teams that should feel robbed especially when old co won leagues champion league football cups and all that money ,when they were cheating everyone when not paying tax that allowed them to afford players they wouldn’t ask Barry had to sign everything to his wife and can’t own anything while Murray keeps his nighthood business old school tie mentality uk shame
Hope you took a deep breath after that Post.
H.H.
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I think it’s the only country in Europe where a ref doesn’t have to declare his home town and club allegiance (could be wrong). It’s also the only one like Belfast.
Celtic have always played against 12-14 men on a pitch it’s been the same since I was a young lad in the 1960s, it does make the win all the sweeter though. As Ange said make the referee irrelevant, don’t get involved in their shit, our team is so good now we can flow and give the huns nothing but take everything.
“somehow they know” eh? How auld’s yer grannie? Ffs tell us something we haven’t known for decades. I’d settle for a death bed confession from one of the corrupt barstewards. One thing I’ve always said is that I could take little enjoyment out of something won unfairly or from downright corruption and that’s what marks us out as different from THEM.
Everything was done last season to stop Celtic getting10 the corrupt refs,sfa,spfl, even sturgeon got involved through covid. That is why we should not care about anything what people think it is in our own hands to stay focused.
Hahaha, tell tell it as it is, of course its the masonic vow of silence/ or they would still be playing junior football on a rented pitch