John Beaton will referee Wednesday’s match between Celtic and Hibs.
It will be the third time since mid-September that the Lanarkshire based official has been in charge of the hoops.
In his first match in charge Joe Hart was sent off away to Livingston but the 10 men survived to run out 3-0 victors, at the start of November a late goal from Oh Hyeon-gyu secured a home win over St Mirren with Kyogo Furuhashi picking up a bizarre first half booking.
As well as his domestic matches Beaton has recently refereed UEFA Conference matches involving Astana against Dinamo Zagreb and Zorya against Macabbi Tel Aviv.
Hibs come into Wednesday’s match on the back of a 2-0 home win over Aberdeen and having held Celtic to a 0-0 draw.
With his high profile Beaton has often been involved in controversial Celtic matches, following one match at Ibrox in December 2018 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.
Since that statement Beaton has refereed the 2020 and 2023 Scottish Cup Finals which is generally regarded as a reward from the SFA for their best referee.
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I’m afraid it means little when the SFA announce the officials for our games, any one of them has history when reffing our games.
Until the rest of the SPFL demand foreign refs we are not having any neutral officials at every game, except of course when Sevco are playing, then there’s many a Mason helping them out!!!
The problem we have where the rest of the SPFL are concerned is, they they think we are two cheeks of the same arse, and that we get as many decisions as Sevco, though its never been two years since we’ve given away a league game’s penalty, unlike another side.
Why doesn’t that merit an investigation? Lawwell doesn’t want them too close to us, but far enough from 3rd place!!!!!
Was going to suggest that we could simply invoke the precedent set by sevco
a couple of seasons ago: they had a problem with referee Clancy, complained
to the SFA, and went public. Clancy didn’t ref a sevco game for a good while,
and no punishment was handed out to ibrox either.
But that would require honest, engaged CFC Board members – with a spine.
No point in complaining about the SFA – or even the match officials now.
Our problem sits in our very own, mute Boardroom. 🙁
While P L and D D pick up healthy cheques there is nothing to worry about. Full houses every week at Parkhead and Ibrox so the “old firm “ is alive and kicking. Controversy helps keep.the masses keen
It’s truly disturbing that whilst the ranjurs go public when unhappy with the officials those same officials don’t get near their games for months on end and whilst our board remain silent We are doubled up on the with same rota of officials who flat out refuse to apply the rules tour opponents.the SFA have Corrupted Scottish Football
If he is Cheatin – We could be Beaton…