The Honest Mistake Culture

The dust has settled on what should have been a comfortable victory at Fir Park yesterday and Celtic sit two points clear at the top of the SPFL Premiership. It should be a weekend for Celtic fans to sit back contentedly and savour for the first time this season being ahead of the pack.

But there is still a bad taste in the mouth from yesterday's match, namely referee Alan Muir.

Celtic fans have always complained about referees and their (to us at least) obvious bias against the club. I can remember names such as Brian McGinlay, Davie Syme and Bob Valentine who seemingly took great delight in giving decisions against Celtic. 

All complaints back in those days were useless. We were assured by all and sundry that while our referees may make the occasional mistake, their honesty was beyond question. I can actually remember after a sequence of dubious decisions went against Celtic in the late 1980's, we were informed repeatedly on Radio Clyde that our referees were actually the best in the world, so shut it Timmy!

Graham Speirs is on record as saying that back in the day (I think he was referring to the 1950's - 1970's), referees actually were biased against Celtic, but that things are different nowadays.

I actually think things got worse in the 80's and 90's, with a succession of names like Mike McCurry and Hugh Dallas being worse than anything that went before (although older fans assure me no one could compare with Davidson).

With Dallas ensconced as the SFA's referee chief, he was succeeded by people like the lamentable Willie Collum and Dougie MacDonald.

No one who was around at the time will ever forget the Season of the Honest Mistake 2009-10, when referees seemed to pull out all the stops to ensure Rangers finished as Champions, while Tony Mowbray took everything on the chin and we moved on. "2010 Never Again" was our cry, but the Season of the Honest Mistake only really ended early in season 2010-11, following two outrageous decisions by the aforementioned Collum and MacDonald.

Collum awarded Rangers a penalty at Celtic Park following a theatrical dive by Kirk Broadfoot, when TV footage shows that the only way he could actually have seen the incident was if he had eyes in the back of his head!

MacDonald's infamous penalty about-turn at Tannadice in 2010 could and should have been a watershed moment in our game, followed as it was by the revelations of linesman Steven Craven, but as criticism mounted, the referees threw the rattle out the pram and went on strike. Who can forget the unwavering support the striking refs enjoyed from the MSM, with Chic Young acting as a one man picket line at Glasgow Airport, turning around a succession of foreign referees as they arrived to take games that weekend?

Nevertheless, Celtic's strong response to Doogiegate did see an improvement in refereeing for a time, and the necessity for Honest Mistakes was lessened to a certain extent by the death of Rangers in May 2012.

What we have seen since the death of Rangers has been a succession of matches at Hampden Park where Celtic have lost cup finals and semi-finals partly (but by no means only) as a result of incredible refereeing decisions in matches against Hearts, St Mirren, Kilmarnock, and most outrageously of all against Inverness CT last season.

A common complaint about, or criticism of, Celtic in the past three seasons has been the seeming lack of cup successes. Refereeing decisions have played a huge part in ensuring this.

Which brings us to yesterday's referee, Alan Muir, who failed to see Josh Meeking's punch away Leigh Griffiths' goalbound header in that cup semi-final last season, and yesterday failed to see two equally obvious penalty infringements from Motherwell's Kieran Kennedy.

It is easy to call bias or corruption on Muir's part, but it is equally as easy for the SFA to brush such claims aside. As we are told constantly, referees make mistakes all the time. You'll also be told that there are controversial decisions all the time in EPL matches, but no one claims bias on the part of the referees.

But this misses the point spectacularly.

Yes we regularly see refereeing mistakes in England, but in England those referees quickly find themselves refereeing in the lower leagues for a while afterwards.

In Scotland, the same referees who make mistakes week after week, still pitch up at the biggest games to prance around the pitch making the same mistakes as before. In fact, they are more likely to see their names put forward by the SFA to take charge of Champions League, Europa League and international matches.

We can never prove bias on the part of SFA match officials, it's a blind alley. But the insistence on seeing their decisions as honest mistakes both draws our attention to where it should be, while simultaneously providing the conditions for bias and corruption to thrive.

You see, we're supposed to be so relieved to realise our officials are not biased and corrupt, thatit never really dawns on us that they are actually, totally incompetent.

By accepting that they are not corrupt, that they are simply the honest mistakes that everyone makes, we accept that referees do not have to be any good at their jobs. They just have to be honestly incompetent.

Now of course referees make mistakes. They are only human after all. But just as you don't hold it against your goalkeeper when he is beaten by a screamer from the edge of the box but excoriate him if he drops a cross ball into his own net, we can at least demand referees get the easy decisions right.

Therein lies the problem with Alan Muir.

When he consistently cannot see defenders punching the ball away in the box, then something is badly, badly wrong.

There really is no excuse for his failure to spot the handballs which cost Celtic a potential treble last season and might have cost us dearly yesterday as well.

As long as the SFA is prepared to tolerate referees getting these decisions so catastrophically wrong, what is there to stop a referee who is biased against any particular team, "missing" handballs like that?

No matter how obvious it is, it will be excused as an honest mistake amid calls to "move on." The Honest Mistake culture provides the perfect breeding ground for bias and corruption to flourish.

Referees must get the message that their old boys' network cannot protect them from incompetent refereeing. They must know that missing handballs like yesterdays will cost them their high-profile matches at least for a while. Repeat offenders must be removed from the top level altogether.

That is the only way to drive up refereeing standards and cut out any possibility of bias and corruption.

I'm not going to call Alan Muir biased. He is clearly incompetent and that should be more than enough for his removal.

Celtic should be writing to the SFA, not to ask for clarification of his decisions yesterday, but to demand the sacking of the most incompetent referee on the SFA's roster.