Celtic have found themselves in a title race partly through a mixture of hubris and incompetence.
Given the financial chasm between Glasgow clubs, it shouldn’t be close.
However, it is, and around £60m is at stake in UEFA revenue next season.
This is when the referees and the VAR chaps could be the tipping point.
At the start of this season, Alan Morrison of Celtic By Numbers laid out the role that officials might play in this campaign.
Last night on the Graham Spiers podcast, Alan presented his research in a quiet, studious way that provided impossible to refute.
He started by asking a simple question of the rest of the contributors.
Alan asked them to agree with the assertion that human error had no pattern.
For the record, there were no dissenters.
Quite simply, if something is a genuine mistake, then it is random.
Alan was quite clear and precise about his approach:
“I’m an analyst; I’m a data guy”.
Alan also stated that, as a Celtic fan, he was instinctively biased and acknowledged that.
To counteract that, he had enlisted the willing help of an FA-qualified referee in England, whom he has dubbed the “Yorkshire Whistler”.
That chap in question is a Sheffield Wednesday fan and has no skin in the Glasgow Fitba feud.
In the blue corner was Mathew Lindsay of the Herald.
The pressman admitted that Sevco going 70 games without conceding a penalty was “bizarre” and “deeply weird”, but there wasn’t anything “sinister” about it.
He then threw out the Masonic conspiracy trope.
It didn’t work and the Celtic By Numbers guy had some uncomfortable evidence for the Herald chap.
Firstly, except for the Statsbomb data, which has to be paid for, the rest was publicly available.
Alan had assessed major game-changing decisions (penalties and red cards) over the last two and a half seasons.
With the assistance of the Yorkshire Whistler, he had identified a “pattern of assistance”.
I’ve used that as the title of this piece because I think it nails it and leaves no wriggle rule for anyone in the local media who thinks that seventy matches without conceding a penalty is perfectly normal.
Alan also presented the control group of Sevco in UEFA.
In those matches, there was no discernible pattern of assistance to the Ibrox side from match officials.
The Ibrox side coincided with penalties and had players sent off within a normal distribution of major in-game events.
Alan further pointed out that on the domestic scene, on average, Celtic’s opponents, over the last three seasons, get a penalty for every 69 incursions into the Celtic’s penalty area.
However, Sevco’s opponents, on average, need to get into their box 178 times before a penalty is awarded!
That looks very much like a pattern of assistance to me, your honour.
Morrison versus Lindsay was an hour-long cognitive mismatch.
Harry Brady of the Celtic Underground podcast shared the fascinating vignette from Michael Lewis of Moneyball fame.
It was about the unconscious racial bias of white officials in the NBA against teams with black players:
A report found that during the seasons from 1991-2004, white referees called fouls at a greater rate against Black players than white players.
The critical point was that it was eradicated once it was out there in the open.
Harry stated that bias was a human universal.
Indeed, to deny that is to be an ally of nonsense.
Sadly, the Fitba Fourth Estate is still willing to die on the hill that says there isn’t any cultural bias in the Scottish game against a club founded by Irish immigrants.
Alan then guided Spiers and Lindsay through an empirically focussed trip through the annals of the SFA, Jim Farry, Hugh Dallas and Dougie Dougie.
The late Jim Farry didn’t conspire with anyone; he merely acted in accordance with his culture.
His career-ending error was to discount the new factor of a litigious North American businessman.
Fergus wasn’t going to allow anyone to damage his business.
As for Dallas Snr, it was another outsider who did for him and ended his tenure at the SFA.
I reckon that Graham Spiers, as a Christian, should have stopped the contest to prevent further humiliation, as the Herald hack was clearly in no position to defend himself.
Part of me felt sorry for Lindsay, who was clearly out of his depth.
As I listened to the ahem professional journalist pitting his wits against a retired IT guy, I was reminded why those mainstream titles are dying.
In wrapping up, Graham told Lindsay that if this amazing run of no penalties against Sevco continued, then the two press box chaps could end up looking somewhat “dinosaurish”.
Quite so…
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The only obvious conclusion is that the Celtic board IS complicit in all of this, nothing points to anything else !
Applying the term “unconscious“ to the bias is to provide a get out clause.
How can everyone, referees, linesmen, VAR officials and reviewers of all these all suffer from the same unconsciousness? The stats being reviewed are penalties not conceded. If the bias was unconscious as stated, those penalties awarded would happen at any time; not just when Sevco happens to be behind or on equal terms with little time left?
Also. the level of assistance provided is penalties conceded and awarded . This is by far the most visible metric. All the free kicks, bookings and sending offs favouring Sevco are allowing them to get into Europe to expand their operation at every other team’s expense.
I’m pretty sure Aberdeen would be able to cumulatively progress if they got Champions League money once every five or ten years.
Anyone questioning the clear calls in favour of Sevco is just labelled a conspiracy theorist and no more is said about it.
Not sure how it can be addressed based on this but Celtic’s form of late has allowed them back into the title race too. If Celtic were winning the games against the rest then Sevco can only claw back points in “Glasgow Derbies”
If Celtic can sign some quality in January instead of project players then it could make all the difference.
Celtic should be doing all in their power to guarantee the Champions League money for next season.
Unless Celtic don’t want them not to be
Benefit of the doubt FC. There in lies your unconscious bias.
Unfortunately for us, almost every other club is intent on the malaise.
According to ChatGPT, the probability of a team going 71 games without conceding a penalty, given the average frequency with which penalties are awarded, is approximately 0.00000001956, or about 19.56 in 100 million.
This thing about ‘heads will roll’, or ‘our board will pay’, really has to stop. Heads will not roll and no one will pay, because no one will make this happen. The fans as always will do absolutely nothing( apart from maybe a GB protest), the board are absolutely certain of this, and laugh all the way to the bank.
In the aftermath of the 2019 AGM where Lawwell denied knowledge of the 5 Way Agreement to attending shareholders, when the questions were posed from the floor, the Doncaster e mail to PL and Eric Reilly with 5WA attached, that questioned PL’s response, was provided to top CST officials to mount a challenge. It never happened.
Therein lies the problem, no leadership of the support where it was expected.
I guess they are just waiting for the right moment when The Rangurs are three/ four nil up with five minutes and 1 minute of stoppage time to go
The conventional wisdom in respect of football economics is that if a club spends more on players than the opposition, that club is likely to enjoy better on field success over a period of time than competitors.
That is still true as matters stand and whilst Killie etc will take points off us over a season, depending on match day circumstances, none of those clubs bar one, are real title contenders because none of them bar one, can out wage their competitors to any significant degree.
So the question I would have thought would have been on everyone’s lips after both sets of clubs’ accounts where published is why the feck did we let Rangers FC Ltd spend more than we did on their playing squad and why did they spend on positions that needed strengthening?
McGregor was a match winner for them but his replacement is not a down grade. Sima is a steal on loan and Cantwell, although a Barbie doll at times, over the piece makes a difference against SPFL competitors.
Other signings are not signed with sell on value taking precedence but for what they can add physically to compete every week in the SPFL.
We are hoping to redress that during the winter window and if we do not, heads should roll starting with The Chairman.
The Chairmans head should not even be there to roll
I said to a friend yesterday, old firm fc will win this title cos they need the cash from CL to survive for a few more years
VAR has made situation worse as you now have additional weak officials to decide any close decisions go in Rangers favour.
I am neither a Celtic or Rangers supporter and have long held opinion that bigger clubs get rub of green with decisions especially when at home. However even I admit that the gross disparity in penalties awarded to Rangers as opposed to even Celtic makes me question that there is an additional factor at work.
I was discussing this issue with a Rangers fan and his answer was that Ranger’s get penalties awarded against them in Europe. When I pointed out that I was criticising Scottish officials and that he had actually proved my point he got really angry.
Of course maybe Rangers shirts are adhesive – it certainly appears so!
The problem Celtic have is a board who need a strong adversary from down Govan way and are quite willing in my opinion to let them have some champions league money every few years to keep the lights on. If we spend between 10-15 million let’s say in January then that should be enough to keep the title in out hands along with the champions league money anything less and our board should be held to account for allowing another club to prosper under their watch.
Let them try to qualify in second position spot. If they get through, they get through. If not, it’s their look out. We do not need a strong Sevco side. We do need a side playing out of there, but only to make fun of, and poke every now and then just to make sure they’re still alive. In a generation they’ll be playing in a half empty stadium. In two generations their grandchildren will be supporting us.
You could say “drag it out into the daylight” – though it’s hardly like it was ever hiding….