Celtic’s silent support for John Beaton

Last weekend there was one subject that dominated the thoughts of Celtic fans following the 2-1 win over Motherwell.

Typically the incident was ignored by traditional media sources but there was no reasonable explanation given over why John Beaton and his assistant both missed the clear handball by Ricki Lamie as Liel Abada fired a cross towards the Motherwell goal.

The defender had already been booked. Facing opponents down to 10 men and Josip Juranovic with his 100% record from the penalty spot could have put the match to bed.

Beaton chose to ignore the handball, Lamie stayed on the park, the game remained alive with the man from Bellshill not missing Callum McGregor when there was the chance to red card him in the 89th minute.

At last years AGM Ian Bankier claimed that the club had deep concerns about referees and was working out of the spotlight on the issue.

On Monday VideoCelts emailed Michael Nicholson about the handball, pointing out Bankier’s comments and the club statement about Beaton in January 2019.

It wasn’t a great surprise that there was no reply from the Celtic CEO, apart from an awkward half hour during the Q and A at the AGM the club executives ignore every issue from supporters whether it is over the top abuse from media partners or broken glass on the pitch at Ibrox the response from Celtic is always silence.

Beaton knows that he can come up with any decision in a Celtic match without a murmur of criticism. He shot up through the ranks, post 2012, taking advantage of the Five Way Agreement knowing that one club had a separate set of rules and another didn’t want their role in that grubby deal to come to light.

Euan Anderson and Alastair Mather picked up the baton yesterday. St Johnstone players on a rota to foul opponents, Andy Considine escaping justice throughout plus incessant offside decisions to slow Celtic down were just part of the story.

Connor McLennan used his arm to prevent Giorgos Giakoumakis having a free run at goal, soon afterwards Considine had a handful of the Greek strikers shirt as Alex Mitchell equalised.

Max Kucheriavyi was only booked for deliberately elbowing Reo Hatate in the face and so it went on.

Beaton will be back on the rota next weekend, Anderson and Mather the following week, interpreting the Laws of the Game in whichever way suits them with one guarantee.

There won’t be a word of complaint from the Celtic Board of Directors, all of them were in place during the summer of 2012.

On 4 January 2019 Celtic announced:

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.

Those requests were ignored with not a word of follow up from former CEO Peter Lawwell.

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