So, Calum Butcher has accepted a three-match ban for his ‘tackle’ on David Turnbull in Sunday’s game with Dundee United. Well, let’s be honest that’s a sensible decision from both player and club for the sort of assault had it been attempted off the pitch would probably have resulted in a criminal conviction.
So, Calum takes his medicine and we all move on, I guess. But what of the referee? What of the SFA? What happens now? Probably nothing you’d assume.
Yet the referee saw this incident, and you know either he or an assistant referee having a word in his shell like, saw the incident and saw it clearly, otherwise why issue a yellow card for the offence? And assuming they did see it clearly and assuming they then decided, despite the nature of the challenge, that it merely warranted a caution, what happens to Don Robertson now?
The man charged with the protection of footballers across the top flight, and this is not simply a Celtic issue here, deemed a challenge as ferocious as Calum Butcher’s warranted nothing more than a final warning. That has to be a worry regarding the competency of the official and whether he is fit to referee at this level.
It also raises questions around the issue of transparency in Scottish football governance. Do the SFA call in the referee, is he asked to explain his decision and if there are questions over his judgement what sort of comeback happens for a referee or his supervisors when the decision reached is so clearly wrong that every single ex professional, referee or otherwise, commenting on Sunday’s game has had no defence for the leniency of the on-field decision meted out by Don Robertson?
Does Robertson get demoted, does he get sent back to the classroom? Or does he pick up his whistle and his cards and officiate at the next available opportunity?
We don’t know because there is no mechanism or opportunity for referees to explain their decisions or describe any mitigating circumstances, nor do the SFA explain to anyone what their internal disciplinary structures amount to when it comes to referees being unable to protect Scottish club’s most valuable assets.
And this is not a stand-alone incident and it is not exclusive to Don Robertson. This season Celtic would have grounds to question the protection of their players on several occasions and via several officials. Other clubs no doubt have their own stories to tell.
Firstly, there was Andy Halliday’s shocker on Callum McGregor in the first game of the season, as Halliday’s Podcast pal Bobby Madden again issued a caution for a red card offence.
Then came Dundee United and Jeando Fuchs at Celtic Park and a dreadful challenge on James McCarthy, a player without his injury worries to seek. A yellow card was issued when a sending off should have resulted.
That one was Kevin Clancy, and in the same game Benjamin Siegrist assaults Liel Abada with a deliberate and targeted kick to the chest, again no sending off and again Clancy is the ref who fails to protect the young player.
Then St Johnstone visit Celtic Park, chase shadows, get frustrated and striker Chris Kane decides he’s had enough, and to all intents and purposes assaults Cameron Carter Vickers. Yet again no red card for the sort of assault had it happened in a taxi queue would have seen any of us huckled for the offence. Instead, Nick Walsh issues both players with a yellow card and tells them to get on with the game.
Then Celtic visit Easter Road, where Tom Rogic gets the rough end of a certain red card from Hibs hardman Alex Gogic, and we’re back to Don Robertson officiating at that one, who decides Gogic can remain on the pitch, meanwhile Tom Rogic picks up an injury and Celtic are minus a playmaker for weeks.
And then there is the flying elbow of St Johnstone’s Shaun Rooney on Stephen Welsh, where somehow Nick Wash decides a challenge that could have resulted in a fractured cheekbone for young Welsh deserves nothing more than a caution. And we’re back to Don Robertson and Sunday’s yellow card against Dundee United and the acceptance of the retrospective three match ban for Calum Butcher.
That is quite a list is it not? It’s a list that involves three referees, all on more than one occasion. And it is a list that is not calling out marginal offsides, or drop balls given to the wrong side that seem to have incensed so many and filled up the air waves and column inches in the last seven days. Instead, it is a list of offences, which until Calum Butcher’s tackle on Sunday, had barely raised a mention in the press, radio phone ins or the Sportscene and Sky Sports studios.
Given some of those referees involved have been able to return to officiating, and fail to protect footballers again, it is a list that shows the SFA’s own mechanisms, whatever they may be, do not involve the protection of players or the assets of the member clubs, because if those mechanisms did, those referees would have been too busy re-training to be back out officiating in top flight games so soon and able again to oversee yet another monumental professional misjudgement.
Let’s be honest as Celtic supporters, none of us are surprised at this. We will all have used our own reasoning to decide why it happens and why it is allowed to continue, but the hard facts speak for themselves, referees and in turn the SFA are failing to protect the players they are charged with safeguarding. Referees are getting it wrong, and clearly so, yet are returning week in week out to make the same mistakes all over again – dangerous errors of judgement.
In the absence of transparency who is left to protect the players? Because the SFA aren’t doing it. It is an organisation in need of reform.
There have been AGM resolutions placed in front of the Celtic PLC board for several years now calling for such reform, yet our own custodians have done nothing to act upon it – preferring to sell it to the support as an anti-Rangers agenda from cranks within the support.
Now our own assets are being put at risk by dangerous officiating, yet still we appear to prefer to keep things in house and use back-channel communication away from the public eye. Yet no-one is buying that, most of us know there are Five-way reasons for Celtic being fearful of speaking out on this matter and the club’s complicity and fear of it all becoming public has us over a barrel.
Yet it is the elephant in the room, and it’s time to come clean. It is time break the shackles and admit we messed up. It is time to do that and then go public on our players being endangered, to target an organisation in need of a torch shone upon it, its practices and its lack of transparency. It needs brought kicking and screaming publicly into this century and Celtic need to stop turning the other cheek while at the same time getting kicked in the balls.
It is time to grow a pair Celtic, before a lack of protection for our players results in one of our own having their career ended. Because all our public silence and apparent behind the scenes words in ears isn’t working. Instead, those who appear to wish us harm are emboldened by our cowardly approach. It is high time we came out fighting.
Niall J
you can only presume that the celtic board agree with all th things being said about kyago etal
Dundee United manager’s reaction to the tackle was also a disgrace. Amateur!
As far as I remember Halliday wasn’t even booked.
You are quite right. Not even a yellow.
There is a very simple reason there are no repercussions for incompetent referees!
Referees are doing exactly what the SFA and SPFL are encouraging them to do.
Issuing yellow cards keeps players on the park to allow their intimidating actions continue to impact on the result.
A red card would almost certainly be damaging to the offending club and the end result of the game it happened at!
For the SFA and SPFL to issue a “retroactive” red is frankly, a waste of time! The result of the game it mattered in is over and done with.
This is a smokescreen to apease fans who overlook the obvious!
This is like ignoring the rules, doing what you know is wrong anyway and asking for forgiveness afterwards rather than permission at the time.
Make no mistake about it, the clear agenda of the SFA and SPFL for this season is to make sure the £30million guarantee for direct entry into the group stages of the Champions League next season goes to ther new establishment club.
Just after we secured our second nine in a row, top SFA men actually came out and publicly commented “this next season is going to be really big because if Celtic are to win the league it would be ten in a row”!
That wasn’t simply a statement, it was a warning! They were not having it!
As bad as we were and as much as we were solely responsible for our bad season, we were NEVER going to be allowed to reach ten!
Just like the SFA/SPFL will do all in their power to give the £30million “Pass” at the end of the season to Scotland’s newest corrupt outfit.
The referees are clearly all on board, working and performing to instruction.