Referees, like Caesar's wife, must be above suspicion

News has broken today that referee John Beaton has been on the receiving end of death threats following his performance in last week’s Glasgow derby at Ibrox. This is a shocking development if true, and the people making those death threats need to be found and prosecuted to the full force of the law. Nothing excuses behaviour like that (again I stress, if true).

It wouldn’t be the first time referees have reported death threats of course and these are always greeted with an outpouring of sympathy for the poor, honest official, his life threatened just for doing his job. It tends to obscure the very real concerns about the performance of his job, as hand-wringing pundits plead with the thuggish element behind the threats to get some perspective, because it is only a game after all, and we wouldn’t have a game at all if it wasn’t for honest, impartial, courageous referees like John Beaton.

What must be borne in mind is that the death threats (if real) and the performance of John Beaton last Saturday are two separate things. Let’s agree there can be no excusing any threats made against him but this story must not be allowed to derail the moves to hold Beaton accountable for his brazen favouring of Rangers* in last week’s match.

Pundits and commentators will now be told to tone down the rhetoric because it will allegedly only feed the alleged bloodlust against Beaton. What this means is, let’s accept Beaton is as honest as the day is long and move on.

But let’s not.

Beaton must still be held to account for the series of bizarre decisions he made in last week’s match, all of which implausibly favoured Rangers*. If anyone is to blame for the death threats (other than the people allegedly making them), I accuse the Rangers Protection Racket that is the Scottish Football Association.

The SFA, amongst many other uniquely bizarre practices, makes no effort to ensure impartiality in refereeing. They are aided in this by the faux-outrage amongst the Scottish football writers’ fraternity at the merest suggestion referees might be at all biased. Honest Mistakes is the name of the game and how dare we question the impartiality of the fine upstanding chaps who go on to make a living on the after-dinner speakers’ circuit telling assorted Rangers Supporters’ clubs, Freemasons and Orangemen about how they damn well made sure Celtic never won a match they refereed.

How dare we question the impartiality of referees who send sectarian emails about the Pope over the SFA computer system.

How dare we question the impartiality of former (and some say current) Rangers season ticket holders as they take charge of a Glasgow derby and make a series of bizarre decisions that somehow always favour Rangers*.

It is at least possible that these guys are capable of being impartial, but is it likely? I know if I was refereeing the match last weekend there would have been a very different outcome, no matter how poorly Celtic performed on the day. Rangers* would have been down to 10 men after 5 minutes, but the difference would be, no one would be able to see they didn’t deserve to be, because Morelos kicked Scott Brown in the balls.

The situation was reversed though. Morelos kicked Scott Brown in the balls and a Rangers*-supporting referee decided against even awarding a freekick to Celtic. That cannot be right.

There’s a story from Roman history of Julius Caesar and his wife Pompeia.

As well as being at different times a Consul of Rome and eventually dictator, quite early in his career Caesar was chosen to the lifetime position of Pontifex Maximus, or “Supreme Bridge Builder.” This was the High Priest of the Roman state religion.

In her position as wife of the Pontifex Maximus, in 62BC Pompeia hosted the festival of Bona Dea, or “the Good Goddess,” which was held in the official residence of the Pontifex Maximus on the Via Sacra in Rome. It was a female-only event, but a young Patrician, Publius Clodius Pulcher, disguised himself as a woman and gained entrance, supposedly to seduce Pompeia.

Publius was discovered and fled without ever coming face-to-face with Pompeia, but was caught and put on trial for the sacrilege of tricking his way into a female-only religious celebration.

Caesar gave no evidence against Publius at his trial and he was acquitted of the charge, but in the aftermath, Caesar divorced his wife. When asked why, he responded that, “My wife ought not to be even under suspicion.”

This has given rise to the proverb, “Caesar’s wife must be above suspicion.” There was no proof that Pompeia had ever had any improper relations with Publius. There was no proof she even wanted Publius to be in the building. But for Caesar, that was not good enough. The very fact that there was a whiff of suspicion surrounding Pompeia was enough for him to divorce her. His dignity demanded no less.

Referees are, or should be, in a similar position to Pompeia. They quite simply must be above suspicion.

The FA in England take this view. Referees need to declare which team they support and they are never allowed to referee games affecting those teams. By doing this, the FA are not saying they don’t trust those referees to be impartial, they are protecting the integrity of the game by placing referees above suspicion.

Referees still make mistakes, but in England at least, we can accept that these are honest. I was at the Manchester City v Crystal Palace match a couple of weeks ago and at one point in the first half a Palace defender headed the ball past his own goal and the referee awarded a goal kick, to howls of outrage from the City fans.

A few minutes later, he awarded City a corner kick, to be met with ironic cheers by the City fans. From the corner, the ball was again headed out by a Palace defender and more ironic cheers greeted the corner award. This time, the referee theatrically took a bow to the City fans. Laughter greeted this and the incorrect goal kick award was forgotten about. The bow came across as an acknowledgement from the referee that he’d made a mistake and the fans accepted it.

It’s inconceivable to me that a similar thing could happen in Scotland; certainly not in a match involving Rangers*.

The SFA insist on appointing referees to Celtic and Rangers* matches who have more than a whiff of suspicion about them. They must take a share of the responsibility when fans perceive referees’ decisions to be blatantly, and game-changingly in favour of the team they support.

The usual objection to bringing in the rule that referees must declare which team they support is that it wouldn’t be possible to have referees who don’t support either Celtic or Rangers* in Scotland.

That to me, in this day and age, is no objection at all. It would be the easiest thing in the world to bring referees up from England or Wales for the day. They could fly in from London, Cardiff, Birmingham or Manchester in less than an hour, and be back home before tea-time.

The reason the SFA won’t do it is that it would be an admission of their own long-term failure to ensure that not only are match officials in Scotland impartial, they can also be seen to be impartial.

Referees must be above suspicion and referees in Scotland are most certainly not above suspicion. The blame for that lies squarely with the Scottish Football Association.

The SFA on Trial

Football in Scotland is descending into farce once again and once again, the need to protect and promote Rangers* is at the heart of it. This time though, it is ever more serious. Over the past six years the administrative side of the game was affected. Now it is affecting the Laws of the Game (as applied in Scotland) itself.

In one sense, the decision of the Compliance Officer yesterday was perfectly reasonable. The rules state that if the referee saw an incident, then the Compliance Officer cannot intervene. On this occasion, the party at fault is referee John Beaton and he must be dealt with, but the situation is the culmination of a series of events in which the SFA is squarely at fault.

Beaton’s handling of last week’s Glasgow derby was by any standards a disgrace. We have to state the usual caveats of course, that Rangers* deserved to win etc, but that is missing the point. Rangers* were the better side and much of that was down to their performance and approach to the game, but equally there is no doubt Beaton’s handling of the match contributed to Rangers’* ability to dominate the match.

Every time Beaton allowed fouls by Rangers* to go unpunished, he helped keep them on the front foot. Every time he stopped play to award a freekick to Rangers* he relieved the pressure from them and allowed them to build an attack. Each time he allowed Morelos to assault a Celtic player, he saved Rangers* from having to play with 10 men (some might say 13).

Let’s take just one example – the build up to Morelos’ stamp on Anthony Ralston.

Just before the stamp, Ryan Christie was fouled on the touchline, about 10-15 yards inside Celtic’s half. He was challenged from behind and had his legs taken from under him. A clear foul.  A freekick to Celtic at that point would have resulted in Rangers* retreating into their own half, with Celtic having the opportunity to move forward. Instead, Beaton allowed Rangers* to play the ball down their left wing, putting Anthony Ralston under pressure as he ran to take possession, with Morelos chasing after him.

At this point, Morelos barged Ralston from behind, knocking him to the ground as he played the ball out. A freekick to Celtic at this point would have resulted in Rangers* retreating to the halfway line, giving Celtic the opportunity to build from the back or launch the ball long into Rangers*’ half. Instead, Beaton ignored the foul and awarded Rangers* a throw in in the final third, putting Celtic under pressure and giving Rangers* possession in a dangerous position.

As Ralston fell, Morelos then tried to catch him with his foot a couple of times before jumping over him and stamping on his back as he did so. A deserved red card for Rangers* would have left them a man short, instead Morelos was allowed to stay on the pitch.

Many people have said Celtic just have to be better than them so that Beaton’s decisions don’t matter – an absolute nonsense.

Saying this means you don’t think Celtic deserve a level playing field. It’s okay for Celtic to be handicapped by poor/biased officiating. You’re collaborating with your own oppression.

Whether Rangers* were the better team or not is immaterial. It doesn’t mean it’s okay for the referee to favour them and it doesn’t mean Celtic don’t have a legitimate grievance.

Secondly, how is any team supposed to overcome refereeing like Beaton’s? When the other side can literally boot you in the balls with impunity, what chance have you got? You can be kicked, stamped, ball-grabbed, shirt-pulled, barged etc and the referee will wave play on. What on Earth are you supposed to do to overcome that?

Beaton’s antics absolutely did have a bearing on the result of the game. He ensured that Rangers* were constantly on the front foot and Celtic constantly under pressure and on the defensive. Yes Rangers* wanted it more and yes Rangers* played very well, but Celtic were never going to be allowed to compete on a level playing field and that absolutely did contribute to the result.

By telling the Compliance Officer that he saw all three Morelos incidents cited, and that he decided no action was required, Beaton has saved Rangers* from the consequences of Morelos’ actions yet again. Serious questions must be asked of John Beaton because any sane observer can see that all three incidents deserved a red card and if John Beaton could not see that, he has no business being on a football pitch.

The SFA must be made to make some kind of statement about this. Beaton is clearly not fit to referee at any level if he did not see the need to take any action. The question now is, what do the SFA think of that?

If the SFA disagree with Beaton’s decisions (which shouldn’t even be in doubt) then they must take steps to remove him from the Grade One list. To decide one of those incidents, in the heat of the moment, was not worthy of action, is at least plausible. To decide all three in the same match were not worthy of action is at best sheer incompetence.

But I would go further than that. *No one* is that incompetent. Taking his overall handling of the match together with deciding three blatant instances of violent conduct required no action, leaves you with only one conclusion – John Beaton is a cheat. John Beaton corrupted the match and did everything in his power to ensure a Rangers* win.

If the SFA cares anything for the game of football in Scotland, they will never allow John Beaton to referee another match. There’s no need for them even to open the can of worms that would result from calling out his cheating. There’s more than enough evidence to show Beaton is absolutely incompetent to referee in the SPFL and we can move on from there.

By doing this, the SFA can send out the message that incompetent refereeing will not be accepted. Referees will know they cannot favour one team and get away with it. Failure to deal with Beaton will be yet more proof that the SFA themselves are not fit to govern football in Scotland.

The SFA has presided over the descent of the game of football in Scotland into a violent farce. Morelos was sent off at Aberdeen in the first game of the season and the Compliance Officer on this occasion overturned the red card on the grounds that his kick on an Aberdeen player was “petulant” rather than “violent,” and that it did not constitute the “excessive force,” or “brutality,” necessary to warrant a red card.

Football in Scotland is now played to a different set of rules to the rest of the world. Morelos’ red card was overturned. Allan McGregor escaped censure for kicking Kristoffer Ajer even after a panel of former referees looked at it. John Beaton may be the immediate cause of the latest farce, but this is the result of previous decisions taken by the SFA and it should be the SFA themselves who are now on trial.

They corrupted the game in Scotland to achieve a Rangers-branded club in the SFL in 2012 after apocalyptic warnings of what would happen if this was not allowed.

They devised the infamous Five Way Agreement, including the previously unheard of “conditional membership,” to facilitate Rangers* participation in the Ramsdens Cup. They devised the previously unheard of transfer of membership to enable Rangers* to participate in the old Third Division.

They arranged for the LNS Commission to investigate Rangers for the use of EBT’s and the fielding of ineligible players for over a decade from 1998 – 2011, then subverted that process by cutting out the period from 1998-2001 and via one of their own officials (Sandy Bryson) concocted the previously unheard of “imperfectly registered but eligible,” to avoid stripping titles and trophies from Rangers’ historical record.

They imposed a registration ban on Rangers* but stood by as they subverted that by signing free-agents in the transfer window to register after it was closed, thereby ensuring the registration ban was meaningless.

The SFA has a long history of finding loopholes to help promote and protect Rangers* and the history of the past six years alone shows that the SFA cannot be trusted to treat Rangers* the same as they do every other club. When they are prepared to break their own rules just to have a Rangers* in the game, how can they possibly be perceived as acting in good faith if they allow referees to ignore Rangers* players kicking and stamping on opponents?

John Beaton has stuck two fingers up at the fans of every football club in Scotland other than Rangers*. Now the SFA must decide where they stand. Will they join Beaton in sticking up two fingers at every football fan in Scotland, or will they do the right thing – deal with Beaton and ensure that football in Scotland is played to the same rules as every other country in the world, where kicking an opponent in the balls is violent conduct and deserving of a red card?

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.

Rangers* and the Aye But Defence

With the SFA compliance officer looking at *three* separate incidents involving Alfredo Morelos in the recent match v Celtic, it brings into sharp focus the chaotic governance of football in Scotland when it comes to teams playing out of Ibrox.

On too many occasions in the past apparently open and shut cases involving Ibrox clubs have been found to have previously unheard of complexities resulting in a Rangers branded club escaping punishment. I call this the, “Sed, etiam,” defence, or in the vernacular, “Aye, but…” Whenever Rangers* are found to be in contravention of the rules, there’s always a “but,” that exonerates them from any punishment.

Maybe the best known example is the case of Rangers players in receipt of EBT payments being incorrectly registered from 1998-2011. For over a decade, an increasing number of players at Ibrox were incorrectly registered due to their contracts not containing details of all payments being made to them as renumeration for their services.  

While previously clubs who had fielded even one incorrectly registered player forfeited the match, even if it was a simple administrative error such as not dating the form properly, or a signature missing or in the wrong place, the SFA in the form of Sandy Bryson pulled a rabbit out the hat for Rangers, declaring that, “Aye, the players were incorrectly registered, but they were eligible.”

This sleight of hand involved the dreaming up of a previously unheard of formula, that the players were “imperfectly registered, but eligible,” on the grounds that because no one noticed at the time (and how could they? The details of their full renumeration packages were deliberately concealed by Rangers), they were therefore eligible to play until such times as the mistake was noticed.

The SFA has allowed a similar situation to develop in Scotland this season over the new wording of the latest revision to the laws of the game for season 2018/19, specifically Law 12, Fouls and Misconduct.

Earlier this season, Alfredo Morelos was red carded in a match v Aberdeen at Pittodrie for kicking an Aberdeen player. It seemed fairly straightforward at the time – if you strike an opponent with hand, head or foot while not challenging for the ball, that’s a straight red card. 

Except in this case it wasn’t. Rangers appealed the card and incredibly the appeal was upheld on the grounds that…”the video footage clearly showed that the force of the kick by the player towards an opponent was not excessive and did not use brutality.”

The wording comes straight from Law 12, which defines “violent conduct,” as, “…when a player uses or attempts to use excessive force or brutality against an opponent when not challenging for the ball, or against a team-mate, team official, match official, spectator or any other person, regardless of whether contact is made.”

The implication of the ruling on the Morelos red card appeal is that, in Scotland at least, punching, slapping, headbutting or kicking an opponent is not a red card offence in and of itself. A degree of judgement has to be exercised by the referee as to whether or not it has been done with sufficient “force” or “brutality” to merit a red card.

When the Compliance Officer reviews the Morelos incidents then, she will not be looking to determine whether Morelos kicked Scott Brown or not, but whether he kicked him with sufficient force or brutality. Here’s what the Appeals Tribunal said about Morelos’ kick on the Aberdeen player back in August:

“Though there was contact, it was limited confirming a more petulant reaction than violent conduct... The tribunal was also mindful of the recent guidance provided that sought to differentiate between petulance and violent conduct. The tribunal was of the view that in the circumstances this was the former rather than the latter.”

Bearing all this in mind, when the Compliance Officer reviews the Morelos incidents, there is no certainty he will be offered a ban for any of them. If we are looking at the standard of evidence required nowadays for an SPFL player to be cited for violent conduct by the Compliance Officer, look no further than the case of Allan McGregor and his kick out at Kristoffer Ajer at Celtic Park.

In this instance, it proved impossible for the three former referees reviewing the incident to reach a unanimous decision. It was not in doubt that McGregor lashed out at Ajer, but those weasel words, “excessive force or brutality” saved him from a ban.

On that basis, and going out on a limb here, if I was a betting man (I’m not), my money would be on Morelos escaping any ban arising from his antics against Celtic.

There doesn’t seem to be any doubt over the new rules in England. I have not been able to find a lot of incidents online but I’m sure there are more and maybe someone will even be able to show an instance where a player in the Premier League has similarly been able to successfully appeal a red card over the interpretation of “excessive force or brutality.” But here’s a red card for Marcus Rashford for a headbutt on Phil Bardsley from earlier this season.

Rashford and Bardsley clash on the byline. There’s a coming together and Rashford puts his head in Bardsley’s face, who then reacts as though he has been headbutted. 

Is this a red card? All day long. No doubt about it whatsoever. But did Rashford use “excessive force or brutality?” All depends on how you define it I’d say. Is there an acceptable amount of force or brutality a player can employ in headbutting, kicking or punching an opponent? Or is the fact of doing it at all the use of excessive force or brutality?

Why is it only in Scotland this seems to be an issue at all? When the Compliance Officer's decision is made public, bear in mind the "Aye, but..." defence.

Beaton Fair and Square?

Let’s get the unpleasantries out of the way first. Rangers* played out of their skins yesterday. They were first to every ball and first to every second ball. They wanted it way more than we did and for that alone deserved their win. 

You know there’s a “but” coming though. John Beaton. 

There are plenty of Celtic fans who will dismiss any complaints about the referee’s performance. They’ll blame the Celtic players. They’ll blame Brendan Rodgers. They’ll say Beaton’s antics don’t matter because Rangers were the better team. If you’re good enough the referee doesn’t matter.

I find that attitude infuriating. It excuses the kind of refereeing performance we see all too regularly in Scotland. Where peepul who have been season-ticket holders of a club can referee that club’s matches against the team they consider to be their main rivals. Where Honest Mistakes are accepted as part and parcel of the game. It all evens itself out over the course of the season. 

Except it doesn’t.

When you say John Beaton’s performance doesn’t matter because the better team won anyway, you are also saying that impartial and competent refereeing don’t matter. That biased and incompetent refereeing are okay, as long as the better team wins. That’s just a nonsensical attitude.

One of the things that makes football the greatest sport in the world is that the best team doesn’t always win. If the best team always won, there’d be no point in playing the game. Sometimes the best team does not win. Sometimes the best team have an off-day. Sometimes they can’t put the ball away. Sometimes a defender makes a calamitous mistake. Sometimes the ball takes a freaky bounce. It’s all part of the game and what makes it so gloriously unpredictable.

So no, it’s not okay if the referee is biased or incompetent as long as the best team wins.

But let’s look at a few key moments from yesterday as far as John Beaton is concerned.

Early in the game, Alfredo Morelos kicked Scott Brown from behind as Brown jumped for a high ball. It was a straightforward assault and in any other country in the word would have been a straight red card. No arguments. Would Rangers have gone on to be the better team if they’d been playing with 10 men for 70-75 minutes? We’ll never know for sure, but we would have found out if Beaton had done his job and sent him off.

Morelos continued in this vein throughout the rest of the match, including a stamp on the grounded Anthony Ralston. Apart from his failure to send off Morelos on the two or three occasions he should have done, the majority of his decisions were designed to ensure the flow of the game continued in one direction. Every time there was a coming together of players, the pattern was the same – if the ball fell kindly to Rangers*, play continued. If it fell kindly for Celtic, it was a freekick for Rangers*. 

Here’s just a few examples, all from the second half. 

1. The ball was played to Ryan Christie who was facing his own goal inside Celtic’s half, just outside the centre circle. Taking possession, he tried to turn and was immediately challenged by Scott Arfield, who grabbed his shirt. As Christie turned, he was pulled and spun to the ground, losing possession. Beaton allowed play to go on.

2. Rangers* cleared the ball towards the halfway line, on the touchline in front of the main     stand. Callum McGregor jumped for the ball and Scott Arfield jumped into him as he headed it. As they landed, Arfield pulled McGregor away from the ball which ran to Ryan Christie a couple of yards away. Arfield then threw himself to the ground in front of Christie who was trying to push forward, and Beaton awarded Rangers* a freekick.

3. On the far touchline, just inside Rangers’* half, the ball was played forward towards Morelos who was challenged by Anthony Ralston. Morelos put his hand in Ralston’s face to fend him off and the ball bounced back towards the Rangers goal. When Morelos went after it, Ralston followed him and ran into him as Morelos shielded the ball. Having ignored Morelos’ foul, Beaton now stopped play to give Rangers* a freekick for the foul on Morelos.

4. Far touchline again, just inside Celtic’s half, a high ball dropped towards a group of players. As James Forrest waited to take control, a tackle from behind took his legs away from him and Rangers* took possession, playing the ball further up the touchline, Anthony Ralston moving to take possession. As he did so, he was barged from behind by Morelos, forcing him to play it out. As he landed face down, Morelos stamped on his back. Beaton awarded Rangers* a throw in.

Now I know fans of every team in the world complain about referees. But if anyone can tell me of just one incident where Beaton appeared to favour Celtic, I’d be happy to have a look at it. But I won’t be holding my breath. Every 50/50 decision went in Rangers’* favour.

Decisions like these altered the flow of the game. Rangers* pressed Celtic aggressively throughout the match and while we have to accept that approach and find a way to overcome it, the referee’s job is to ensure that that pressing approach remains within the laws of the game. If players are fouled, they should be given a freekick but that wasn’t happening yesterday. 

I’m sure no one would dispute that Rangers* was the more aggressive side. They were swarming all over Celtic from the first minute to the last. Celtic were lackadaisical in comparison. But would it surprise you to hear that despite this supine performance, Celtic committed two more fouls than Rangers*? According to the Sky Sports stats, they committed 17 fouls to Rangers’* 15. You would almost think Celtic were the more aggressive team!

Celtic should have been pressing them equally aggressively, but as we’ve seen, if it even looked remotely like a foul, Beaton was giving it to them. 

No one is more disappointed than me in Celtic’s performance yesterday. It lacked urgency and aggression. The team line-up was baffling and it’s impossible to say that they deserved anything from the game. 

But to return to my point, it’s not about what you deserve. The important thing is that the officiating is impartial and competent and it clearly wasn’t yesterday. Anyone who thinks it had no bearing on the outcome is deluding themselves.

It wasn’t the main reason Celtic lost, that was down to us. But it’s not an either or situation. Just because we didn’t play well doesn’t mean we didn’t deserve impartial and competent refereeing. And if we had had that, we’d have had an 11v13 advantage for most of the game. It would have been a different game entirely. And just because we didn’t play well doesn’t mean the officiating had no bearing on the outcome. It most certainly did.

The Split Has Got to Go

The furore over the post-split fixtures, once an annual farrago, has returned with a vengeance this year and many are blaming Sevco.

No I bow to no one in my distaste for that club, but it must be said, the issue over the fixtures is not their fault. The fault rather lies with the system itself, which is an affront to the very principle on which a league season should be based – that every club plays an identical set of fixtures.

The whole point of having a league competition is to establish which team is best over the course of the season. No one disputes that in a cup competition the winners may have benefited from a large slice of luck in winning it. A favourable draw, rivals being knocked out in earlier rounds, a fortuitous bounce of the ball; it’s all part of the drama of the cup. But that’s not how a league season should be decided. League winners should be indisputably the best team over the course of the season. Every placing should reflect that – second should have shown over the season that they were better than third, third better than fourth etc.

The gap between first and second has for most of this century been substantial and it has usually been Celtic. After the introduction of the split in 2000/01, the now defunct Rangers won the title four times and their biggest winning margin was 6 points, while Celtic’s winning margins most seasons was in double figures. In a season with a very tight margin of victory, it can reasonably be said that the Championship may have gone to another time were it not for the vagaries of the split giving the champions a third home match against particular opponents.

That won’t be the case this season, but with a three-way fight for second place, “Rangers” have undoubtedly been handed an advantage over Aberdeen and Hibernian with a third home match against two of the other top six sides.

I’ll reiterate, this is *not* Sevco’s fault. It’s the system. A system that sacrifices the principle that every team should play an identical set of fixtures for a money-driven one that every team should be guaranteed 19 home matches, even if that means their nearest rivals having to play them away from home three times over the course of the season.

The split as it stands makes it impossible for every team to play an identical set of fixtures. Even if the 19 home game guarantee was scrapped, some teams will still have played more difficult away matches than others.

Something very simple needs to happen. The split needs to go.

Simple enough to decide upon, but it would lead to some difficult decisions to be made regarding the size of the league. The clubs were determined that the top flight should be made up of more than 10 clubs, which used to give us a 36 match season.

The split was introduced because the clubs decided that a 44 match season was too much. It enables a 12 team top flight, but only a 38 match season.

My solution would be to expand the top flight to 16 clubs, giving a 30 match season. With everyone playing each other once home and away, that means 15 home matches for everyone. I would also reintroduce the group stages of the League Cup, giving everyone a guaranteed 36 games, with a guaranteed 18 home matches. The groups could be seeded to have as far as possible a team from each division in every group. This would mean six lucky teams outside the top flight having a home match v either Celtic or “Rangers,” spreading the wealth around.

The common objections to this would be that there are not enough “decent” teams in Scotland to support such a large top flight, and that there would be too many meaningless games. Meaningless in that there will be a sizeable group of clubs in the middle of the league under no threat of relegation and with no chance of troubling the business end, and too many matches that are foregone conclusions.

My answer to that is that that could actually be a *good* thing for the game in Scotland.

Since the creation of a top ten in 1975, the top-flight in Scotland has been a cut-throat league. Probably less than half the league is not in a fight for survival, and clubs in mid-table know that a couple of bad results could see them mired in a dog-fight to avoid relegation.

This is not good for the development of players. Clubs can’t afford to take chances on young players. They can’t afford to try out new formations or ideas. They have to fight for every point and that means playing it safe against each other and parking the bus when they play Celtic or one of the Rangers clubs.

At the top end of the table, before the liquidation of Rangers, the imperative for the top two was to win every game. One slip up could cost you the title. So the same thing applied to Celtic and the former Rangers – few opportunities to blood young players, every game an absolute pressure-cooker.

Maybe a bigger top-flight with more “meaningless” games would actually be a good thing. With an 18 team top flight until 1974, we had Celtic win the European Cup and the now defunct Rangers the now defunct European Cup Winners Cup. Scottish teams continued to do reasonably well in Europe till the late 80’s, with Aberdeen winning the ECWC in 1983 and Dundee Utd reaching the UEFA Cup final in 1987.

Looking at those Aberdeen and Dundee Utd sides, is it any coincidence that so many of their most influential players emerged as youngsters on the cusp of the introduction of the ten-team Premier Division? Willie Miller, Gordon Strachan, Doug Rougvie, Paul Hegarty, David Narey, Paul Sturrock, all made their debuts in the 2-3 years before the Premier Division began.

Is it any coincidence that just as that cohort reached the end of their playing days that Scotland suddenly stopped producing teams capable of progressing in Europe? Sure we’ve had the odd exception like Celtic’s UEFA Cup final appearance in 2003 and Rangers’ in 2008, but those were done through massive, unsustainable spending. Celtic went through years of self-imposed austerity even before Seville, while Rangers went bust.

A sixteen team top-flight with a League Cup group stages would guarantee every team 18 home matches per season and I would argue would facilitate better development of young players. Teams at the top of the league would have more matches where they would feel able to try out younger players against opposition who have little chance of beating them, while mid-table teams would not have the fear of relegation that prevents them from doing so too.

This won’t be to everyone’s liking, but the present system has late us down. There are many reasons why Scotland has stopped producing players in the numbers it once did, I don’t think for a minute the small top-flight is the only reason for it, but it must be a major contributing factor. We’ve all known the reserve team wunderkind who is touted as the next big thing, who gets at most a handful of opportunities then drifts down the divisions. They get so few opportunities to impress, usually against seasoned pros fighting for their survival in the top division, and if they don’t produce the goods right away they are written off.

But my main objection to the current set up is that it is not fair. It doesn’t give every team an identical set of fixtures and this year, that will have a huge impact on 2^nd-4^th place. That’s not Sevco’s fault. It’s not even a system set up to benefit “Rangers.” It’s just a stupid way to organise a league.

Whatever happens, the split has got to go.

The Myth of the O** F*** Duopoly

I don’t need to dig up the quotes from various Scottish football experts, blazers, ex-Rangers players and pundits. We’ve all seen them too often to need them. Scottish football needs a strong Rangers. Rangers has always been a giant of our game, part of the “O** F***” duopoly that has reigned over Scottish football since time immemorial. It’s often presented as “having one dominant club is bad for the game.”

Except it’s a myth. Apart from the last 30 years, the “O** F***” has never been a duopoly. Scottish football has always been dominated by one club.

I’m not arguing that Rangers were never a big club, or never the dominant force in Scottish football, because obviously they were both at different times, but when you look at the history of the game in Scotland, there never was a time when one club wasn’t in the ascendancy, and we haven’t had a legitimately strong Rangers for forty years.

Historians like to divide time into convenient chunks in order to make sense of history. It’s a narrative that is usually imposed with the benefit of hindsight and a study of the “switchover” period between eras usually reveals no seismic changes had taken place. The people living through it do not notice any difference.

In early 15^th Century Italy, no one was conscious that society was experiencing “the Renaissance.” Life went on exactly as before for the vast majority of the people. Similarly, no one woke up on 1^st January 1500 thinking, “well, that’s the Middle Ages over,” but nevertheless, the division of history into different eras does make sense. Society changed far less between 1200 and 1400 than it did between 1400 and 1600.

Organised association football in Scotland goes back to the 1860’s. There’s approximately 150 years of history there and neither Celtic nor Rangers were around for all of it. As historians, if we want to truly understand the story of Scottish football, it makes sense to divide it into eras. A problem is that different historians of Scottish football would identify different eras and there might be wide disagreements about the time frames of those eras and why they should be recognised as different eras. I’m going to have a stab at it here.

My first era of Scottish football runs from the formation of Queen’s Park in 1867 to the foundation of the Scottish Football League in 1890. This would encompass a period when Scottish clubs played in the FA Cup, through the beginnings of the Scottish Cup and the clandestine development of professionalism. This is the origin story of Scottish football, at the end of which it is recognisably the game we all know and love today. From a single club, we now have a national cup competition, a national league competition, and paid players. It has become a major business.

My second era of Scottish football runs from 1890 to 1920. In this 30 year period, the league grew in importance and a second tier was added. By this time, the League was now almost the equal of the Scottish Cup in prestige and we are now firmly into the 20^th Century. It’s a convenient finishing point for two reasons – the end of WWI, and a handing over of power. Celtic were unquestionably the dominant club. It was Celtic’s first Golden Age with Willie Maley’s team sweeping all before them, including a 62 game unbeaten run between 1915 and 1917. Legends like Kelly, Quinn and Gallacher were the bedrock of Celtic’s dominance. By the end of WWI, things were changing.

My third era of Scottish football runs from 1920 to 1939. Celtic still had some great players. Gallacher was around till 1925, then the torch was passed to the Jimmys McGrory and McStay, but it was a very unsuccessful period for Celtic, with only flashes of glory. Despite those intermittent League and Cup wins, the inter-war period was Rangers’ time in the sun. Hitching themselves to the Orange bandwagon in the aftermath of an influx of Ulster Protestant shipyard workers to the new Harland & Woolf shipyard in Govan, their new sectarian signing policy and a positioning of themselves as the Scottish response to the Irish Celtic, saw Rangers became the dominant force in Scottish football and Celtic lapsed into a long, long period of underachievement. Rangers would win 15 of the 20 League Titles in those years. They won three in a row between 1922-23 and 1924-25, five in a row from 1926-27 to 1930-31, and three in a row again from 1932-33 to 1934-35.

World War Two saw an end to official football competition in Scotland (only the Scottish Cup was suspended in WWI, which shows it was still regarded as the premier competition) and my fourth era of Scottish football runs from 1946 to 1965. My reasoning for this division is that Rangers continued to dominate the game, with Celtic winning just one league title and a handful of Scottish and League Cups in that 20 year period. It ends with the arrival at Celtic as manager of Jock Stein, after which all is changed, changed utterly.

In that post-war period, Rangers were not unchallenged, but their challenge came from various teams. Between their league titles (never more than two in a row), there were league title wins for Hibernian, Aberdeen, Hearts, Dundee and Kilmarnock. They won half of the league titles in that period, with none of the other winners taking more than two titles.

My fifth era of Scottish football runs from 1965 to 1986. This was Celtic’s second Golden Age and even though Jock Stein left the club in 1978, to me it was still the Stein era as his apprentices McNeill and Hay continued his work. It is easy to regard the 1978-86 period as a separate era as Aberdeen and Dundee Utd launched a serious challenge to Celtic’s hegemony, but despite that, Celtic still won more titles in that period than Aberdeen did (4 to 3). Celtic were still No1.

My sixth era of Scottish football is 1986 to 2000. This was the Murray era at Rangers (yes, he only took over in late 1988, but the massive spending began under Graeme Souness in 1986), with Advocaat coming in at the tail-end. Celtic were in a tailspin in this period, being saved in 1994 by Fergus McCann, but our on-field recovery by necessity took a little longer.

This was another period of Rangers dominance, fuelled by the unsustainable spending which sowed the seeds of their liquidation in 2012. The O** F*** didn’t dominate in this period. Celtic won the league only twice in 14 years. But for the Centenary Year double, the last hurrah of the Stein era Celtic, Rangers would have won the league eleven times in a row. Take away Wim Jansen’s title win and that would have been fourteen.

My seventh era of Scottish football is 2000-2012. It began with the arrival at Celtic of Martin O’Neill and ended with Rangers’ liquidation. This era also sees the beginning of Celtic’s third Golden Age. In that 12 year period, Rangers won five titles (2002-03, 2004-05, 2008-09, 2009-10, 2010-11), all of them EBT fuelled, and all of them in any other country would be expunged from the record. This era is the first time since the pre-WWI era when it could reasonably be argued that such a thing as an O** F*** duopoly exists, and it was all built on an illusion. There was no legitimately strong Rangers in that period.

If ever there was an O** F*** duopoly in Scottish football, it was the second era, which ran from 1890 to 1920 which saw Celtic take 15 league titles to Rangers’ 10.

That apart, we have had long periods of dominance by one club, not two.

The first era, before the beginnings of league competition, was dominated by Queen’s Park. Their hegemony was briefly threatened by Vale of Leven in the late 1870’s but had been re-established in the 1880’s. Although a few other clubs did manage to win the Scottish Cup, Queen’s Park won it as late as 1893, by which time they were playing clubs who were professional in all but name. Newspaper reports of the 1892 final in which Celtic defeated Queen’s Park refer to the Spiders as, “the premier club.”

Celtic and Rangers between them dominated the second era, with Celtic on top, then comes a long 40 year spell with Rangers as undisputed No1 up to 1965.

Since then, for 50 years Celtic has been No1, broken only by a brief period in the early 1980’s when Aberdeen emerged as serious contenders, and a ten year spell when Rangers spent their way to nine in a row and a further ten year spell when an EBT-fuelled Rangers just about managed to keep pace with Celtic before expiring.

So the idea of an O** F*** duopoly in Scottish football is really a myth. It belongs to a period which ended nearly a century ago. The norm in Scottish football has historically been dominance to a greater or lesser extent by one club.

Rangers* fans make a great deal of their “54 titles,” which is actually 53 and a half as the first was shared with Dumbarton and if goal average or goal difference had been used to split the teams, it would have been Dumbarton’s alone. The reality is that 33 of them were won before 1965, which is the AD of Scottish football. Most of their titles are BS as it were. 60% of them were won before Jock Stein became Celtic manager.

In the 52 years since, Rangers had one period of dominance, from 1986 – 2000, which ultimately killed them. They were finished off by the EBT’s it took to keep them anywhere near Celtic after the arrival of O’Neill.

So when you hear that “Scottish football needs a strong Rangers,” and that “One club dominating is bad for the game,” remember two things:

1)      Historically, one club has always dominated in Scottish football. It has merely alternated between Celtic and Rangers for most of that time. It has been more like a pendulum swinging back and forth than a duopoly.

2)      We haven’t had a legitimately strong Rangers since the mid 1970’s, and even then they did no more than interrupt a period of Celtic dominance.

 

Winning the odd title here and there does not equate to dominance. That comes from a sustained period of league title wins (eg more than half in a 10 year period) and only twice since the mid 1960’s has Rangers had a sustained period of league title wins – the nine in a row which was bought at a cost that brought them to their knees, and five more this century paid for by EBT’s which killed them.

A strong Rangers is history. The O** F*** is mythology.