With the evidence about Scottish match officials now overwhelming the mainstream media has turned to conspiracies and claims of paranoia to avoid confronting the truth.
Rather than examine decisions individually it is much more convenient and comforting to bundle together both Glasgow clubs compared to taking a look at the individual details of the two teams.
Interestingly Ange Postecoglou recently picked up on this issue in regards to tactics, highlighting a laziness from the media that bounces back when managers discuss two clubs as if they are both exactly the same.
Showing what a reasonable guy he is while falling back on some old favourites to defend the issues highlighted by Willie Collum and John Beaton at Ibrox on Monday, Graeme McGarry explains to Herald readers:
Let me make it abundantly clear at the outset that I am in no way suggesting any sort of conspiracy against Celtic among referees. There is still a fair old section of the Celtic support who think there is a grand masonic scheme within the SFA to prevent them winning matches. Their current nine-point lead at the top of the Premiership, as well as their 52 league titles, 40 Scottish Cups and 20 League Cups have been won in spite of this.
It’s nonsense, but they aren’t the only ones guilty of such tin-foil hat stuff. Take the Connor Goldson ‘handball’ incident at the weekend. There are plenty of Celtic fans who hold the belief that had the roles been reversed and a Goldson shot had struck the hand of Carl Starfelt in the Celtic area, then John Beaton would have pointed to the spot quicker than the regulars of Bellshill’s staunch watering hole The Crown Bar got the pints in for him after the game.
But it is an argument I’ve heard innumerable times down the years from fans of smaller clubs when dubious decisions have gone against them while playing either side of the Old Firm. I can just about buy the theory that large supports baying for decisions may subconsciously influence a referee’s call, but the colour of the strip or the school they went to?
Perhaps McGarry can explain why the club at the top of the SPFL has had five penalties awarded against them in 20 matches yet the side in second place, with a goal difference 20 inferior, have yet to have a Scottish referee award a penalty against them.
Touching on schools it seems that the author has opted out of examining why one referee, Nick Walsh has refereed five of the 20 SPFL matches that the Ibrox club has played. Walsh’s day job is just a few miles from Ibrox where he works on the fitness of the Murray Park starlets. Not that anyone at the Herald would highlight the frequency of his Ibrox appointment or the clear conflict of interest that Crawford Allan regularly presents Walsh with.
Had the application of the laws on handball been applied identically across all matches in the SPFL Celtic would have the same points total or two more, the Ibrox club at least eight less with Hearts chasing them down in the race for second place.
If McGarry needs to jog his memory he will find that USG, Napoli and Liverpool were all awarded penalties against Giovanni van Bronckhorst’s side. From zero penalties in 20 SPFL matches to four against in 10 ties refereed by European officials.
Membership of the Lanarkshire Refereeing Association may be a gold ticket in Scotland but it doesn’t carry the same influence with those pesky foreigners.
Unfortunately for the Herald and others, fans have access to video clips and raw statistics, the protection applied by the old media no longer stands up. It just makes them look more ridiculous as print sales fall off a cliff and digital revenues fail to fund their vast overheads.
On Friday The Herald (part of the Newsquest stable with the Glasgow Times and Rangers Review) will be given special media access by Celtic to provide content to their readers and subscribers.
How should Celtic deal with the SFA over VAR?
Quietly in the background, the Bankier way
Keep the pressure on through the Daily Record
Publish detailed complaints after every match on club website
Do Celtic really need newspapers anymore, our podcasts and blogs are where the fan’s look to for honest and practical reporting,
Not the daily dross from newsprint.
Editor: Celtic’s Communication Manager likes to keep his old school buddies in the loop, extend the lifespan of newspaper titles as new media kills them off with differing opinion.
This is part of what I’m saying the press are running our fans and the club down into the ground and these scum journalists are allowed to the stadium to ask questions,that’s why you will never get the club or the board calling these people out, they are in it with them.
Editor: By not challenging these opinions Celtic encourage it- and provide them with special access and content.
“Intelligensia na Hunni”! They can be as smart as they like to think they are, but they’re still Huns. And they still have to hold to the old fallacies. They just regurgitate it when it is appropriate, or they are asked to do so! They deny that which is plainly obvious to anybody with an independent mind and able to interpret the facts for themselves.
P.O.M.E. Huns!