Scott Brown has exposed the elephant in the room inside the centre of Scottish football.
With Ian Maxwell and Crawford Allan at work on the sixth floor at Hampden the former Celtic skipper was in the media suite previewing Sunday’s League Cup Final.
It is almost two years since Brown last played against the Ibrox Tribute Act but one incident from that match shames the SFA and every single one of Allan’s Category 1 match officials.
Kevin Clancy awarded Aberdeen a penalty, Lewis Ferguson scored to earn his side a point and in the 71 SPFL matches since then no other referee has dared to do the same. Soon after the match a letter of complaint to the SFA from Ibrox was leaked to Sky Sports.
Recently in the Press & Journal Richard Gordon highlighted the issue, a sub-editor decided to use the word ‘remarkable’ as a headline, fans of 11 Premiership clubs would use different phrases for the actions of Nick Walsh, Willie Collum, John Beaton, Alan Muir, Steven McLean and the rest of Scotland’s top officials.
Covering yesterday’s Hampden media conference the Daily Record reports:
Former Celtic skipper Brown insists Rangers HAVE to win at Hampden – claiming a defeat would have a damaging effect on Philippe Clement’s side. But when he was made aware of the penalty stats he laughed: “Is that the last time they conceded a penalty? I’ve been retired that long .. since they last had a penalty against them (in the league)! That’s incredible, eh? It’s good to see VAR is working well!”
It is unclear which reporter put the question to Brown, whoever it was hasn’t highlighted the issue in his own newspaper.
Strangely two penalties have been awarded against the Ibrox club in three League Cup ties, which highlights just how ‘remarkable’ the SPFL run is. James Tavernier has scored more goals against the Dons than any other side with 10 of his 12 efforts coming from his favourite distance.
Don Robertson has been trusted with Sunday’s match.
— RhebelRhebel (@RhebelRhebel) December 11, 2023
Consider a hypothetical scenario.
Over the years there has been no love lost between sevco and Aberdeen.
The LC Final on Sunday will be full of noisy, excited, charged up supporters.
Say, the final whistle is fast approaching,
and it’s a draw.
Extra Time is looming.
Then, in the 95th minute Aberdeen are denied a stonewaller of a penalty.
VAR may – or may not be used – but no penalty is given to Aberdeen.
Alternatively, in the 95th minute sevco is awarded the softest / dodgiest
of penalties,
VAR may – or may not be used – but the penalty is still awarded to sevco.
THEN, what if in sheer frustration, the Aberdeen fans invade the pitch to protest at
a perceived, corrupt refereeing decision in favour of sevco?
I don’t want this scenario to happen, obviously, but that type of scenario is
a real risk – and the chances of a bad reaction from opposition fans is
increasing with every penalty denied to their team – or awarded to sevco.
Will the SFA only wake up and do something IF such a bad reaction happens?
Only after a bad fans’ reaction, will Maxwell and the SFA admit that they should
have investigated these ‘incredible’ sevco penalty statistics, over the previous
couple of seasons?
Arguably, the SFA could be regarded as negligent for not investigating sooner,
and for not communicating this with the paying customers.
There is potentially a ‘sevco penalty’ timebomb ticking away…
and the SFA is asleep at the wheel, as per.
Do you think the day is coming when a manager at pitch side during a game against the Rangers,calls over his captain who then pulls off his team from playing because of obvious referee and VAR corruption ? I think there is a distinct possibility as what is the point in playing in a rigged game !
It certainly would expose such dishonesty of Scottish football officials to the rest of the world in a heartbeat …..