At what point does sustained pressure on referees start having an effect?
It is a question worth asking after Wednesday night, particularly when you put what happened to Celtic at McDiarmid Park alongside two major incidents Rangers survived against St Mirren at Ibrox.
This isn’t about claiming referees are corrupt or that somebody at Hampden has decided Rangers should get favourable treatment.
The question is much simpler. After months of statements, public criticism and anger whenever a major decision goes against Rangers, are officials now second-guessing themselves when they have a big call to make against them?
Celtic had a goal ruled out against St Johnstone after the assistant decided Sebastian Tounekti’s cross had gone out of play before Kasper Høgh headed it back across goal.
VAR couldn’t establish that the ball had actually gone out. The pictures weren’t conclusive enough to overturn the assistant, so Celtic lost the goal on the original judgement.
However, the. original judgement wasn’t trusted four days prior against St Mirren in Paisley when Celtic had a goal chopped off even though the original decision was to give it and VAR couldn’t disprove it.
Chris Sutton called the decision in Pert “baffling”. Kris Boyd also believed Celtic had been unfortunate.
Over at Ibrox, St Mirren had every reason to feel considerably more aggrieved.
Emmanuel Fernandez caught Ismeal Kabia inside the Rangers penalty area after the St Mirren player had played the ball. Don Robertson didn’t give it and VAR decided there was no need to send him to the monitor.
Former FIFA referee Bobby Madden believes it should have been a penalty. Andy Halliday, hardly someone who could be accused of looking for reasons to hammer Rangers, also thought VAR should have intervened.
Then there was the incident involving the St Mirren player breaking through towards goal.
Again, Rangers escaped without the punishment many expected.
Celtic supporters have seen something remarkably similar before.
Auston Trusty was sent off at Tynecastle last season after bringing down a Hearts player just inside his own half. There was still a considerable distance between the Hearts attacker and Celtic’s goal, but the decision was that Trusty had denied an obvious goalscoring opportunity.
Celtic played the consequences.
At Ibrox on Wednesday, a St Mirren player was brought down in a comparable situation while heading towards the Rangers goal and no red card followed.
You don’t need every incident to be identical to wonder where the consistency is.
It also comes days after Rangers received a contentious penalty against Motherwell. Mark Clattenburg believed that decision was wrong and argued VAR should have intervened.
Every club gets decisions. Celtic have benefited from poor calls before and will do so again. That’s football.
What makes the Rangers situation worth examining is everything that has surrounded refereeing decisions involving them.
Rangers have spent a considerable amount of time publicly challenging officials and the SFA.
After losing to Celtic in last season’s League Cup semi-final, they issued a statement questioning “the consistency of refereeing in Scottish football” and complained that VAR had not been sufficiently “robust or thorough”.
It wasn’t an isolated outburst.
There have been meetings, statements and repeated demands for accountability whenever Rangers believe they have been wronged. Instead of going to the SFA in a calm and dignified manner behind the scenes to seek answers, they have played to the gallery.
Things reached an ugly point towards the end of last season.
The fury surrounding Celtic’s penalty against Motherwell went far beyond legitimate criticism of a refereeing decision. John Beaton’s personal information was leaked and the referee and his family required police protection.
The SFA subsequently hit out at what it called a “hysterical media narrative”, pointing towards post-match interviews, media commentary and official social media output as contributing to the atmosphere.
That matters when looking at what happens next.
Referees don’t operate in a vacuum. They know what has happened over the past year and they know what can follow a contentious decision involving Rangers.
So what happens when a referee has a split second to decide whether to award St Mirren a penalty at Ibrox?
What happens when he has to decide whether a Rangers defender stopping an attacker heading towards goal meets the threshold for a red card?
And what goes through the mind of the VAR who has to tell him he has got it wrong?
Nobody has to consciously favour Rangers for the pressure surrounding those decisions to have an effect.
That is what makes Wednesday night so difficult to ignore.
Celtic had a goal removed on the judgement of an assistant despite VAR being unable to establish conclusively that the ball had gone out.
At Ibrox, Rangers survived a penalty incident which a former FIFA referee believes should have been punished. They also escaped a possible red card in circumstances which will have immediately reminded Celtic supporters of Trusty’s dismissal at Tynecastle.
This comes only days after another controversial decision went Rangers’ way against Motherwell.
Maybe Rangers have simply enjoyed a fortunate run of refereeing decisions. Those runs happen.
But after the relentless pressure placed on Scottish officials, the public statements and the increasingly poisonous atmosphere surrounding refereeing last season, Scottish football is entitled to ask a more uncomfortable question.
Have Rangers spent so long demanding that officials think twice about decisions going against them that officials are now doing exactly that?
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One Response
Unfortunately I dont think they raise any uncomfortable questions outside of Celtic fans. The mainstream media happily brushes over any suggestions of bias (aka cheating) and will continue to do so. Celtic as a club should be defending the fans and the club, publicly questioning the difference in officiating but again, they will gladly remain silent. Change is necessary.