Well that didn’t take long did it? The weekend has just ended and already the Scottish mainstream media has dug up a conversation from a podcast involving a few retired referees that feeds the ridiculous theory that Celtic are getting advantageous decisions as they maintain their lead at the top of the Cinch Premiership. The Scottish Daily Express has today quoted ex officials Des Roache and Steve Conroy, who appeared on a Podcast called Get Involved Referee, lamenting Ross County’s Kayne Ramsay’s sending off.
As far as these two former officials see it, the Ross County defender, who is on loan from English Premier League side Southampton, didn’t even commit a foul never mind deserve a red card. Forget that the tackle lead to Tom Rogic having to leave the field injured, as far as these two see it ‘injuries are part of a contact sport’.
First up was Des Roache who said: “It wasn’t a foul. He has won the ball. You canot tell a player how hard he can challenge for a ball. Don’t get me wrong, he’s taken everything but for me he has won the ball and remained in control of his challenge. I don’t think that’s a red card.
“Injuries are part of a contact sport. Are we going to take it back to playground rules where you can’t hurt your mate? I don’t think Ramsay has gone to hurt anyone. He has gone to win the ball fairly within the laws of the game.”
Firstly let’s put an end to this ‘Ramsay was in control’ nonsense. He clearly wasn’t. Yes he got a touch of the ball but in modern football that doesn’t count for much when the excessive force you use goes on to injury your opponent.
The point about ‘are we going to take it back to playground rules where you can’t hurt your mate’ is ridiculous.
Football moved towards this a long time ago. We are not talking about a bit of physicality between two players here. We are talking about a clearly dangerous tackle that injured a player. Roache sounds like someone’s Granda at a match who always brings up ‘back in my day’ stuff. These types of tackles shouldn’t exist in the modern game, and apart from in Scotland, rarely do.
Former Grade 1 whistler Steve Conroy was up next, and almost unbelievably agreed with Roache, going one step further and comparing it to the Jozo Simunovic tackle on Kenny Miller a few years ago. He said: “I agree and I’m going to reference a famous tackle from a few seasons ago when Jozo Simunovic cleaned out Kenny Miller – probably even more so than Rogic.
“That was an absolutely fantastic tackle. You can tackle with as much gusto as you like so long as you get the ball.
I don’t even see it as a foul, far less a red card.”
We should be shocked that these comments have even been reported by a so called serious newspaper, far less calling it an exclusive, but I guess like myself most of you won’t be. This theory that Celtic are getting all the decisions going their way at the moment has been picking up serious momentum since we took the top spot in the league and it will remain until the end of the season.
I wonder if this pair had any opinion on the most ridiculous penalty decision I have seen in a long time at Dens Park yesterday? I was flabbergasted when I saw the panel on Sky Sports all agree that it was a penalty. If that was a penalty then we can expect matches in Scotland in the future to be having about ten penalties per game as it was clearly just a bit of a tussle between two players vying for the ball.
Of course this isn’t the headline refereeing decision this weekend. A highly dubious decision which handed theRangers a penalty when they were 1-0 down in a game they had to win is less controversial than a clear red card to a Ross County player when Celtic were already 3-0 ahead.
Typical isn’t it.
One for fans of the term 'gaslighting' i believe. https://t.co/ICcau0XOwa
— RabQuinn (@WolfgangDikface) March 20, 2022
One for fans of the term 'gaslighting' i believe. https://t.co/ICcau0XOwa
— RabQuinn (@WolfgangDikface) March 20, 2022
READ THIS…‘Penalty to Rangers’ – Gaslighting, North Korea level propaganda on Sky Sports
Even Kenny McIntyre, the self confessed supporter of theRangers on BBC Sportsound admitted that their panel had looked at the penalty incident at Dundee several times and had no idea what it was given for. And the panel on Sportscene came to the same ‘ no penalty’ conclusion. Shaun Riley on The Celtic Star earlier has covered the apparent gaslighting that is coming out of Sky Sports, and as for Andy Walker, always eager to find controversy in anything that might go Celtic’s way, couldn’t bring himself to question the penalty call yesterday at Dens Park.
Sit down, grab a cup of tea and a sandwich, and listen to BBC Radio Scotland’s post match analysis of the Rangers penalty, from yesterday’s game, in it’s entirety.
Ooft. pic.twitter.com/30UD9qGfOo— Lint (@Zeshankenzo) March 21, 2022
Ask yourself this question – had the incident happened at the other end of the pitch what would be the chances of Madden awarding that penalty against theRangers? Zero is the answer.
Conall McGinty
