In the immediate aftermath of the match against Sevco’s low-calorie cousins, I spoke with a usually mild-mannered Hoops fan.
He was almost unrecognisable over the phone as I had never heard him so angry.
Scratch that; I’ve never heard him angry at all!
His settled view was that Celtic was cheated at Tynecastle and that VAR had played a role in that.
Certainly, Chris Sutton appeared to be similarly minded.
It is worth remembering that the VAR impresario was one Steven Mclean, who was the match referee that day.
In 2015 he was the chap who missed this one at Hampden.
I was at the match, at the opposite end and sitting with John Fallon.
The ex-Celtic keeper and I could both see it as a handball and penalty all day long.
Here you are, just in case you thought that none of the officials didn’t have a good view!
Yeah, I know…
The man with the whistle at Tynecastle today was Nick Walsh.
I’m told that his day job is to teach Sevco’s starlets in his role as a PT teacher at Boclair Academy.
Mr Mclean is also the brother of ex-Rangers player Brian McLean who declared for Northern Ireland rather than his native Scotland.
I think it is fair to say that Messrs McLean and Walsh have more than a passing attachment to the favoured franchise at Ibrox.
That they do not allow that to adversely impact their decision-making when they’re officiating at Celtic matches is quite admirable.
Indeed, it is a testament to their integrity.
Of course, to deal with any accusation of bias, you must remove doubt.
Therefore, officials with clear allegiances should not be near any match involving the club in question or, indeed, their city rivals.
Colleagues in England are aghast at what passes for normal in Fair Caledonia in this regard.
Some in the green half of Glasgow had welcomed the introduction of VAR as something that was positive on Planet Fitba.
This in CQN from yesterday must get the Pollyanna award for wide-eyed naiveté.
I have no expectation that Video Assisted Referees, which come to Scottish football today, will finally level the playing field. Newco’s recent pressuring of officials shows how nuanced modern refereeing is. Still, for all of what the previous generations of Celtic fans lived through, for all the games illicitly lost, trophies denied, the innocuous fouls ignored, the penalties given and denied, VAR is welcome – a hundred-fold.
Full disclosure, I know the author and personally like him.
That said, nonsense is nonsense wherever it comes from.
The idea that Scottish football will suddenly discover sporting fairness is risible.
When anything resembling it has been imposed on Planet Fitba, it has come from outsiders.
Fergus McCann was, by naturalisation, a North American businessman.
Consequently, if his business was being hurt, he was inclined to go to law.
He KNEW what the late Jim Farry had done with the Jorge Cadete registration and litigated.
The Bunnet won that one.
Dear reader, consider this:
What are the chances that the ONE time that Celtic got lawyered up that they found something dodgy at the SFA?
In 2011 Rangers should not have been granted a licence to play in UEFA competitions for season 2011-2012.
Once more, the SFA were found wanting when it came to applying the rules on the favoured franchise.
If you want to drill into the detail, it is all here.
The current Celtic board didn’t want to know about any of this, and their behaviour towards the Resolution 12 requisitioners was shameful.
Someone, perhaps at the AGM next month, should say sorry to them.
Outsiders also uncovered the biggest scam operated by the favoured franchise when HMRC investigated and uncovered the EBT scam at Ibrox.
Even when presented with the forensic evidence that the original Rangers had fielded scores of ineligible players over a decade.
The response of the people who run the game in Scotland was to conjure up a fiction of “imperfectly registered” and let it pass with a derisory fine.
Incidentally, the creative chap who came up with that euphemism was next in line to give evidence in the Cadete registration case.
However, Farry totally crumbled when questioned by Celtic’s QC, and it was game over.
There was no conspiracy to hold up the Cadete registration.
The late Mr Farry was merely acting within the mores of his culture.
By hindering Celtic, he was assisting the favoured franchise at Ibrox.
It was ever thus in Fair Caledonia.
Farry, EBTs, and Sevco are allowed to play dress up as the original Rangers despite the legal reality of liquidation.
When you remember all of that, then what chance does a penalty claim have?
VAR will only add another dignified voice to proceedings.
I reminded my buddy today of those basic realities, and after calming down a bit, he agreed with me.
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All VAR has done it to confirm that which we already knew to be true.
Metaethically speaking we are being “shafted” .and the board seem to be enjoying it.
Celtic will benefit in the long run from VAR with matters of fact.
They cannot cheat with things like off-side (Abada was quite clearly off-side).
I thought Maeda’s goal looked as if it might have been off-side but I was delighted when replays showed it was well on-side.
Everything negative about VAR happened to Celtic against Hearts.
Everything that was a matter of opinion and interpretation.
We will continue as usual to be treated unfairly in these situations but overall we will benefit.
Be patient. Hail! Hail!
CHARGER Is entirely correct…were now faced with a double dunt..one on, and one off the park. Putting VAR aside for a moment, looking at the decisions on the park, disallowed goals, offside’s etc the officiating was shocking…add in the VAR decisions and overall it becomes unreal. Therein lies the problem, it’s all too real. VAR is not just a game changer it’s potentially an every game changer. They can add all the hardware/software they like into the mix, the bottom line is somebody still gets to call the shots. Those two unbiased ref’s at Tynecastle very nearly amounted to a win double…how Celtic managed to take a result away from that game is a testament to tenacity. We should be all over the powers that be like a bad rash for the overall officiating of that game, which even managed to get a reaction from the usually unflappable Ange, i suspect not though, compliance seems to be constantly golden where our board are concerned. Thanks Phil for all you do
Didn’t the ref do the usual thing in not giving a penalty against one of the Glasgow duopoly?
Only for VAR to correct this?
Sounds like your pal is unhappy about the lost advantage you used to enjoy.
Delighted herts lost btw.
Week one of VAR and Celtic paranoia is already out of the blocks and way down the racetrack.
Give it time to bed in for gods sake before jumping up and down like spoilt children
I am not a Jambo who dislikes both halves of Old Firm (Rangers more due to open sectarianism). I am pretty sure I speak for majority of most non Old Firm fans (yes we do exist and there are quite a lot of us) this column and the accompanying comments only open Celtic fans to ridicule.
By the way Phil I have many Jambo pals and they dislike Celtic & Rangers equally as well as Hibs so your tiresome comment of low calorie cousins is offensive, pandering to worst element of Celtic support and way below your normal standard of commentary.
“Old Firm”?
Oh dear.
Bye bye.
I think paranoia is usually based on no evidence. Fortunately we have the evidence this time. When a mechanism was in place to offer the referee the option to have another look at our penalty claim VAR shot it down in flames. Not paranoia. Fact based in evidence. Your comment about it being week one doesn’t serve to reinforce your paranoia claims. It merely reinforces the fact that on the very first occasion that VAR could have been deployed in a decision for Celtic it was denied. Why was the referee not given the opportunity to review the incident? In a fact based incident, offside, there is no need to offer a review. VAR can say not offside and that’s that. However, a penalty claim where there has been a hand ball, whatever you think of the hand ball, is a decision based on the judgement of the referee. As they always say, the ref has the final decision so why did VAR feel they had the authority to deny the ref that option? A blind man could see that as a penalty and it would be given 100% of the time in England. A view supported by an ex top level referee in England.
So stick your paranoia shite where the sun doesn’t shine. The pen and the Ralston goal being disallowed for nothing more than jostling in the box were the only contentious incidents. The other big incidents being 2 pens and an offside given in Hearts favour. Both correctly in my view though some might argue about the first pen since it was both players kicking each other by accident. But hey ho. You don’t win some, you lose some. So it would seem only one team suffered at the hands of VAR. So keep your crap about “old firm” and them always getting the decisions. Only one member of the so called “old firm” seems to get the pens. 4 in one game and James Tavernier has built a scoring record based on the number of pens they get. It was clear on Saturday that some officials just can’t bring themselves to award Celtic a pen in a critical stage of a game. The occasional one when a game’s won.
As for “old firm”. Our board may hold on to that name for commercial reasons but we, the fans, don”t recognise it. Rangers, and therefore The Old Firm, are dead. They died in 2012, didn’t you notice?The rangers international football club can hardly be part of an old anything when they have only been in existence for 10 years.
JS
P.S. Phil have you watched (Bad Sport) Footballgate on Netflix ?
One club with too much clout influencing referees.
The police collected the evidence and shut down the cheats.
What chance of that in unfair Caledonia ?
A good watch for anyone interested in just how the fix could be done.
I couldn’t believe what I saw on sportscene last night.
I agreed with 1 of the Hearts penalties, the 2nd one, but the 1st showed a hearts paying stretching for a ball he couldn’t get with his studs up.
The disallowed goal for Celtic, WTF was that ?
Livi’s sending off was a joke, 7 minutes added time for Sevco, why ?
Celtic denied a penalty because the ref wouldn’t look at the VAR, again WTF !!!
Even Chris Boyd thinks it was a joke.
If Celtic dont complain then Celtic are at fault and customers should make their voices heard
You just had to look at the face of the Hearts player in that split second, if ever a person looked guilty as he realised what he had done. His face told you everything.
The other night we had a situation when Sakala kicked out at the Dundee player, Collum was frightened to show the red card as he didn’t want to annoy the habitual complainer’s again.
Why on earth our board sit on their hands when TV evidence is there for everyone to see defies Logic.
But there again when they failed to get justice when a team were proven to have cheated for over 10 years says it all.
Yesterday you saw Scottish football for what it is, a pantomime as obvious as profesional wrestling. If it wasn’t for all the corrupt decisions and bias in the game in Scotland Celtic would be way way out of sight and completely untouchable but that’s just not as marketable or profitable as the hero and villain show we have now. I mean, Is it really all about funny handshakes, protestant Scotland and hating the Irish/catholics that this is all about in the game or is it really just about keeping the money rolling in? Are the rangers fans really the gullible or are we just as gullible as each other shouting ‘he’s behind you’ on message boards and Twitter accounts while forking out fortunes buying into this illusion. Keep them distracted by the bigoted red hand while the left hand steals your wallet. Nothings gonna change or who’s gonna change it when everyone running game are making so much money from it just the way it is?
Why do the Celtic board not come out and say something about refs, 5 way agreements, liquidation myths and all the rest of the crap that’s come out over the last ten years or so?
‘To remain silent is to be guilty of complicity’
The games a bogie, the tables are rigged, so you might as well just sit back and enjoy the show folks
“What are the chances that the ONE time that Celtic got lawyered up that they found something dodgy at the SFA?”
I remember Celtic engaging Paul McBride, who had the SFA squirming and promising olive branches for him to help rewrite their disciplinary laws after he branded the SFA “the laughingstock of world football”, and “not merely dysfunctional and dishonest, but biased”.
Of course, what was entirely consistent, was from that position of strength to effect change, we let it evaporate, as always.
Spot on.
An issue that requires clarification is what constitutes a handball leading to a penalty in the box by McLean? He deemed Josh Meekings was not a hand ball as the picture shows so not surprising he saw Smith’s handball in the same light.
The question Celtic should put to SFA is was it a handball in both cases under the rules or not? If it was then how is McLean qualified to officiate at games if he does not know the rules?
Fellow refs need that clarification too so the are consistent in their application of the rules. This approach based on competency removes any hint of paranoia.
All true. All sport aside maybe golf is corrupt. All main stream media is corrupt. All politics is corrupt. All establishments are corrupt. Open your eyes and see it HH
If Celtic do not ask questions of at least two of the VAR decisions yesterday, then iam afraid that these charlatans will continue to ride rough shod over the rules of the game in scotland, and sh** all over our club.
Until we can hear the conversation between Ref and VAR Operators and see evidence of how they reach these decisions, like we do in Rugby/American Football, nothing will change for the better. Same old, same old am afraid.
Yesterday’s handball / non-handball was our first ‘honest VAR mistake’ then?
Agreed, VAR in itself will probably not change behaviours.
However, the honest mistakes are going to be highlighted like never before, which could create more noise around the standard of SPL match officiating than ever before?
It might even prompt the CFC Board to actually try to do something about it…?
Maybe. 😦
Ah widnae hoad ma breath for that one🙄
They have the opportunity at the AGM.
https://sentinelcelts.com/2022/10/16/calling-out-the-refereeing-cabal/
We will now have to contend with a biased official on the park, AND a biased official in front of a monitor. Double jeopardy.
Incidentally, I wonder, if the “foul” which ruled out Ralston’s goal, had been committed on a Celtic player in the box, would we have got a penalty? I think we ALL know the answer to that one.
Big Jock once remarked, “If we score enough goals, they can’t chop them all off.”
VAR will be used to chop off as many as they can.
I have all ways said 1967 Lisbo was Historically Celtic best ever result but I would also say Jock Stein’s 9 in a row 1965/74 is even more Celtics greatest achievement considering there was Sky TV, and any other medium that would scrutinies the Honest mistakes…
So there we have it. In the first domestic VAR game involving Celtic we see clear evidence of biased officiating. No paranoia when the proof is there in full slow motion technicolour. Previously these were
Honest mistakes
Unsighted referee
The player had no chance to avoid the arm contact.
It hit the upper arm
It hit his body
or any number of other excuses we have been fed over the years. Maybe, just maybe the ref missed it. However, that is the clear and specific role of VAR. To see these incidents and draw the referees attention to it. Then if there is debate ask the referee to review the incident on the trackside monitor. Not only was there no review indicated as being done but whoever was looking at the incident via VAR ignored the clear and deliberate hand ball but they thought it best not to offer the referee the chance to review. Clear und unambiguous bias. Someone explain otherwise.
Regarding Ralston’s goal. The ref is supposed to let play continue and if a goal is scored it can be reviewed after. By blowing the whistle for some innocuous challenge, less of a challenge than at both recent St. Mirren goals, the ref removed that opportunity. Perhaps deliberately avoided any opportunity to review. Hearts could rightly be aggrieved if we scored a goal after the whistle was blown.
So rather than sorting out debatable decisions we are now still getting the decisions but they are there for all to see. There’s where our paranoia has been fed for decades.
I fully expect Celtic to be making representations authorities asking how that decision can be explained with anything other than straight forward bias.
No pens since April. Says it all. The most attacking team in Scotland with such a spot kick record is astonishing. Well it should be but really isn’t to us.
JS.
My first contribution I was paranoid for years but not paranoid enough and I was correct.
Do we think var will make the field level no
It will be used to not give us goals but to give them goals against us, today was the first lesson in we will use this accordingly.
Who had put 3 past Joe in Scotland until today.