Hartson calls out John Beaton’s bizarre Ibrox decisions

John Hartson has highlighted the strange decision making of John Beaton at Ibrox on Saturday while BBC Scotland leads the national outrage over a corner and throw-in at Livingston the following day. 

Most fans acknowledge that referees have a difficult job to do but they get very little help from the SFA, on Saturday Beaton was refereeing Aberdeen for the second time this season at Ibrox. 

Similarly Nick Walsh has been the referee for both of Hibs’ visits to Ibrox while Bobby Madden was put in charge of six of Celtic’s first 24 SPFL fixtures. 

Beaton has a lengthy charge sheet for incidents at Ibrox dating back to a Scottish Cup tie involving Albion Rovers in 2014. 

On Saturday Calvin Bassey was allowed to push Calvin Ramsey off the pitch in the lead up to the only goal of the game with Hartson pointing out Beaton’s double standards in two other incidents. 

The former Celtic striker told the Daily Record: 

You look at the television and see that (Aberdeen’s) Lewis Ferguson got booked for standing in front of a player then five minutes later Kemar Roofe does it and doesn’t get booked. All of a sudden, where do you stand on that? It’s like everybody’s going on about ‘Celtic, they’ve got the referee again’ but obviously there is a foul in the build-up to Rangers goal against Aberdeen. 

Over the last 26 months only one Sevco player has been red carded by a Scottish referee, during 2021 Kemar Roofe, Leon Balogun, John Lundstram and Glen Kamara were sent off in UEFA matches.