Beaton On the Square

As I suspected would be the case, Alfredo Morelos is to face no action over three flashpoints in the recent Glasgow derby at Ibrox. I was right about that, but I was wrong about the grounds for no action to be taken.

My forecast was the “Aye, but…” defence would be used to avoid any action being taken against Morelos, but it turns out to be far more brazen than that. The Compliance Officer, Clare Whyte, has investigated the three incidents, but was informed by referee John Beaton that he saw all three, and deemed them unworthy of action. Therefore, according to the rules, there is no case to answer.


Let’s just pauses to consider these incidents for a moment. Incidents John Beaton by his own admission, saw and deemed unworthy of action.


The first saw Celtic’s Scott Brown jump to head the ball. Morelos, just behind him, kicked the Celtic captain up his backside while he was in mid-air.


In the second incident, Morelos barged Anthony Ralston, again from behind, as he took possession of a ball played down Rangers’* left wing. The barge resulted in Ralston falling to the ground and Morelos followed up by standing on his back, not once, but twice. Beaton awarded Rangers* a throw in.

The third incident saw Morelos on the ground, with play stopped, and he hit Ryan Christie between the legs. One photo actually shows him grabbing at Christie’s privates.

This begs the question, what does a player actually have to do before John Beaton deems his actions worthy of action?

Serious questions must now be asked of John Beaton’s suitability to be a Grade One referee if he thinks kicking, stamping, and groin grabbing do not constitute violent conduct and a straight red card. But this is kind to Beaton. It assumes he is simply incompetent.

No one is *that* incompetent. An incompetent referee might miss one obvious red card offence. To miss two stretches credibility. To miss three? There is only one conclusion to be drawn.

John Beaton is a cheat. An examination of his performance last weekend will show that every 50-50 decision went Rangers’* way. Any time opposing players came together in the middle of the park his decisions were consistent. If the ball ran kindly for Rangers*, play was allowed to continue. If the ball ran kindly for Celtic, it was a freekick to Rangers*. I will withdraw this statement if anyone can show me a single incident from the 90 minutes when a decision *might* have gone either way and went Celtic’s way.

We all knew this at the time, but with today’s admission that he saw all three incidents involving  Morelos and cited by the Compliance Officer, John Beaton is sticking up two fingers at every non-Rangers* fan in Scotland.

He is telling us he knew Morelos should have been red-carded, but he decided not to and he is now challenging us, “What you going to do about it?”

John Beaton knows Morelos should have been sent off on three separate occasions. John Beaton knows we know Morelos should have been sent off on three separate occasions. And John Beaton knows he will get away with it.

There are two options here. John Beaton is either incompetent or he is a cheat. Either way, Celtic must pursue this to the ends of the Earth. The first thing they should do is demand that the referee’s supervisor’s report from Saturday is made public.

John Beaton says he saw these incidents and no action was required. That’s an astonishing admission, one he feels comfortable making because he obviously thinks there will be no ramifications for him from it. What I want to know is, how do the SFA rate that performance? Did the referee supervisor observing his performance agree with his decisions? How was he rated?

If Beaton’s handling of the match was rated as even satisfactory, then we are in a whole world of trouble in this country. If his handling of the match was rated as less than satisfactory, then then by missing THREE obvious red card incidents he has made such an almighty mess of it that he should never be allowed to referee a Premiership match again.

Two options, Celtic. He is either a cheat or incompetent. I know which I think it is.