Celtic’s silent support for blundering John Beaton

On Monday night at Dundee United John Beaton decided to disallow a perfectly legitimate goal from Daezen Maeda. 

Instantly on Premier Sports Stephen Craigan knew that a mistake had been made. Beaton had two assistants and a fourth official watching the same incident. 

Tellingly the SFA were unable to drag up a former match referee to defend their man. There was nothing marginal about the decision to disallow the goal. The ball had struck Giorgos Giakoumakis on the hand, unintentionally, Maeda slid the ball into the net and Beaton decided to disallow the ‘goal’. 

Fortunately Celtic won the match 3-0, the error from the referee didn’t impact on the result. Next time Ange Postecoglu’s side might not be so fortunate. 

Over the next few weeks there will be three Glasgow derbies, as one of the favoured SFA referees Beaton is likely to be in charge of one of them. 

At the Celtic AGM in November Ian Bankier mentioned that the club had deep concerns about referees, I questioned him on issues about Nick Walsh and Bobby Madden. 

On Wednesday I emailed Michael Nicholson about Beaton’s performance at Tannadice, mentioning that Celtic’s silence would be seen as approval of the Lanarkshire based official. The new Celtic CEO never bothered with a reply, he didn’t even get his Communications Manager to phone up with excuses for the SFA as Peter Lawwell would have done. 

Back in January 2019 Celtic issued a statement about their concerns over a match Beaton refereed at Ibrox, that followed a week of social media criticism of the referee and Celtic. 

Pushed into action Celtic stated: 

Celtic Football Club is surprised that there will be no disciplinary action taken by the Scottish FA regarding the incidents during the match on December 29, which have been widely addressed in the media.  

It is reported that no action was taken because the match referee saw all of the incidents in question.  

Given that the referee took no action at the time, this tends to suggest that such conduct, which in one instance led to a Celtic player, Anthony Ralston, being injured, is acceptable in Scottish football. That cannot be right. 

On the day, Celtic did not play well enough to win the match, something we accept. However, this issue goes beyond the result of the match. 

Celtic is not the only club this season to raise concerns regarding the standard of officiating at matches in Scotland, concerns which have also been shared by many commentators on the game. 

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. 

The following year the SFA awarded Beaton the Celtic v Hearts Scottish Cup Final having laughed aside the statement on their referee.

With Celtic on mute Beaton and his colleagues know that they can make up decisions that suit themselves without even a whimper of complaint.

Kevin Clancy and others know that any minor mistake against Douglas Park’s side will result in a letter of complaint being leaked to Sky Sports and at least two months without an Ibrox appointment. 

Since Clancy refereed the match between Aberdeen and the Ibrox club Celtic have had John Beaton referee three of their matches. Clancy can contact Willie Collum about the consequences of a complaint from the Ibrox club.