Celtic manager Brendan Rodgers has a little bit of time to put his feet up now we are in the October international break, and with seven wins from seven in the Scottish Premiership campaign, seeing us top of the table with 21 points and a 21 goal difference, whilst performances can and should improve, the main issue for fans is again our European involvement.
With a lull in the fixture list for a couple of weeks now, the Hoops faithful can take a short break from those concerns and frustrations and focus their energies elsewhere for a bit, but it is worthwhile going back a few days to the 2-1 victory over Ross County just so that one particular pundit story does not get lost amongst the headlines that were doing the rounds following the full time whistle in that clash.
The pundit in question is 41 year old, 18 capped former Scottish international striker Kris Boyd, and he seemed to heavily object to the fact that 24 year old Nicolas Kuhn did not see a red card for two bookable offences in the game owing to his late goal celebration in the match. For those fans who like a flutter on their football, and regularly check out live online Celtic match results as well as in game betting options and odds, few would have even considered punting on a double booking for a goal celebration and the reason for that seems to have bypassed Boyd.
Having scored our winner with two minutes remaining on the clock to take another three points from our league campaign, the German winger got caught up in the moment, and as fans will know, he enthusiastically celebrated with the away fans that were situated behind the goal.
Given he was already on a yellow card it was a potential risky move as he left the field of play, but referee Kevin Clancy more than used his head and acknowledged the harmless emotion of the moment.
This, however, infuriated Boyd as he just could not get his head around the decision to show leniency, and whilst he praised Kuhn’s finish, he sarcastically added:
“…and obviously you can just run into the crowd now and celebrate and nothing happens… The rules must have changed because I thought you got booked if you run into the crowd.”
Now, on face value this appears to be an acute observation from a pundit who knows his football and we have all seen players booked in the past for interacting with the crowd after a goal has been scored have we not?
Whilst fellow pundit James McFadden did not see any real issue in the event, it seems that all in the studio had actually slightly missed the point, and former referee Bobby Madden was perfectly happy to take to social media after the match to correct Boyd’s confusion on the matter.
Defending Clancy’s decision to not book the former Under 20 international, Madden posted a clip of Kuhn’s celebration, as well as a similar celebration by Aberdeen’s Ante Palaversa, and a snippet of a Tom Rogic crowd celebration from back in 2017.
He then simply explained that the complaint was ‘whataboutery’ and that he could easily show a clip of a player from every team celebrating in a similar manner without them being booked for it. He also explained why.
Fans had long objected to such cautions, so the authorities had removed such instances from the mandatory yellow card list ‘over a decade ago’. It has long been down to a ‘referees discretion and common sense’ and bookings have only subsequently been shown when a celebration was deemed to cause a safety issue or a security risk, or was totally excessive or led to a significant period of time wasting.
Obviously leaving the field of play without permission is not a bookable offence as most players would pick up several bookings each half when defending or attacking the byline and their momentum took them over.
There are naturally other caveats that apply to both a yellow card, and then avoiding a yellow card and they are in IFAB’s stated rules, and I remain confident pundits like Boyd can discover them for themselves.
Fans and bookies have, it is why nobody bets on it happening in those circumstances.
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