Des Roache has attacked Chris Sutton, Stephen Craigan and Michael Stewart claiming that they don’t understand the Laws of the Game.
Craigan was first to call out John Beaton on Monday night after the Lanarkshire based referee disallowed a ‘goal’ from Daizen Maeda following a handball by Giorgos Giakoumakis.
At half-time Sutton and Stewart were in agreement with the former Motherwell defender as they discussed similar incidents earlier in the season when goals were allowed to stand.
Roache’s refereeing career seemed to peak with three Championship matches in the 2014/15 season, according to Soccerbase his last match was a 3-0 win for Falkirk away to Dumbarton in December 2014.
These days he has teamed up with Steve Conroy to produce a podcast for former Rangers Media chief Lindsay Herron who is now Sports Editor of the Scottish Daily Express.
Turning on the pundits, the Express reports Roache saying:
I think I’d be questioning the understanding of the rule book by most pundits. If you’re working at a high profile game broadcasting to the nation and questioning the referee’s knowledge of the laws of the game then you should have that knowledge yourself.
Let’s get them in. A lot of people watching are taking what they are saying as fact so I think we should give them a laws of the game test. Why not get all of the presenters or pundits to be given a better understanding of the laws – it would give them more credence when they’re broadcasting.
Tellingly Roache didn’t offer any defence or explanation for Beaton’s decision on Maeda’s ‘goal’.
He wants to test pundits’ knowledge? They probably know more than him!!
It’s interesting that Roache should try to deflect the criticism from such a horrendous error by Beaton and attempt to send it to pundits, in this case Sutton and Stewart.
Let’s not forget it is the responsibility and JOB of the FIFA match officials to know the rules, including the new ones, inside and out!
The fact is some decisions will always be contentious and we accept this. Many decisions are blatantly deliberate bias calls and over several years, we have come to accept this too.
But when in today’s world when there is a week long debate because Celtic got a corner against Livingston when the correct decision was a goal kick, I suspect the 100% incorrect call by Beaton to disallow Maeda’s goal for an accidental handball by a different player on Monday to deserve at least equal review!
Trying to cover this up to protect the potential blatant bias or at the very least, incompetence is wrong.
It raises questions that need to be answered and not in the juvenile way that Conroy and Roache have approached it!!
Clearly, Beaton got it wrong! Was it because he felt at 1-0 Dundee United were still in the game but at 2-0 the game was getting to be out of their reach?
Cover-ups and deflecting the facts towards someone asked the question is juvenile at best!
Sutton and/or Stewart were not the men tasked with making sure the rules of the game were applied. Beaton was, and failed.