Why not Clement? Sutton calls out double SFA standards

Chris Sutton has looked underneath the one match touchline that Brendan Rodgers will serve at Livingston tomorrow and asked why other SPFL bosses haven’t been punished by the SFA.

Following his post-match comments after to Hearts at the start of the month the Celtic boss was highly critical of the match officials and used the word incompetence in relation to John Beaton.

The Lanarkshire based official triggered two VAR reviews with Don Robertson taking pitch-side reviews to send off Yang Hyun-jun and award Hearts the softest of penalties.

Over two spells managing Celtic the Irishman has been loathe to criticise officials but it seems that threshold was crossed at Tynecastle. On Thursday at Hampden Rodgers discovered his punishment and will watch Sunday’s match at Livingston from the stand.

Since the announcement of the ban it has been the biggest talking point in Scottish football, questioning the consistency of the SFA.

Writing in the Daily Record Sutton asks:

I’m sure Rodgers is relieved he’ll be in the thick of it next Saturday, rather than cut off in the stands. The fact it was in doubt is a strange one mind you. As soon as he said the word ‘incompetence’ and named VAR official John Beaton along with Don Robertson, we all knew he was in bother and a ban would be inevitable under the rules.

But I just wonder how come no other manager has copped it this season? Pretty much all of them have been critical of VAR or referees. I’ve seen strong stuff from Derek McInnes, Steven Naismith, Stuart Kettlewell has recently gone to town and Philippe Clement has taken the odd pop. Neil Warnock was only here a few weeks and moaned about it after most games.

None of those guys ended up in the dock. It seems it’s okay to infer officials are incompetent – but you can’t actually say it. Rodgers just said what they are all thinking – what most of us are thinking. In courts you can’t get done for defamation if what you say is true. But it doesn’t seem to work that way in the SFA legal system. Even if the officials were incompetent, you are not allowed to say it.

No action was taken against the club from Ibrox after they issued three rounds of statements through club sources questioned Willie Collum, bias was inferred rather than incompetence culminating in informing the Heart & Hand podcast that Collum shouldn’t be in charge of any future matches, a demand that the SFA have complied with in terms of SPFL matches.

The clear lesson to Rodgers and Celtic is that to express their opinions and get action taken they should get sources to inform media partners their opinions of officials which comes without any punishment from the SFA.

NOTE: After recent matches against St Johnstone and Motherwell Clement has been highly critical of the lack of protection given to Todd Cantwell and Ross McCausland.