Making Beaton ref is taking baseball bat to common sense when a cooling-off period was the better part of discretion
It smacks of SFA putting Celtic boss ‘in his place’
THE business of alleging the game’s governing bodies orchestrate matters to sabotage Celtic is a nonsense.
The club’s prolonged run of success, while annexing 11 of the last 12 titles, tells you any conspiracy theories suffer from a distinct drawback.
The total absence of any substantive proof.
Class, and not connivance, has been the recurring theme.
Which is why Brendan Rodgers goes into today’s game against Rangers having lost just one Old Firm derby out of 15 played.
Rather than play hunt the conspiracy, the Celtic support need to confront the reality.
At one time this season they had an eight-point lead over their greatest rivals.
A manager-led resurgence at Rangers following the arrival of Philippe Clement has coincided with the erosion of that gap and exposed a level of negligence from Celtic.
But now Celtic fans have been given a get-out clause while they watch today’s game on television.
The appointment of John
Beaton as the referee at Ibrox is insensitive at best and a gratuitous distraction.
The occasion has an element of Brendan’s Last Stand about it since a win for Rangers would put them two points clear of his team with a game in hand.
Today’s match needed no artificial stimuli, such as the appointment of a match official who has, in the eyes of the Celtic support, cornered the market in innuendo.
Rodgers called Beaton incompetent when Celtic lost to Hearts on March 3 and served a one-match touchline ban for expressing himself too explicitly for the SFA’s liking.
The decision to appoint the same referee to this high-octane game smacks of the authorities putting Rodgers in his place.
I wrote here last week the only way matters could have been made worse relative to fuelling the conspiracy theorists was by doing precisely what they have done with regard to Beaton.
It is taking a baseball bat to common sense when a cooling-off period was the better part of discretion.
Rodgers tried to adopt a conciliatory tone with his remarks about the ref at Friday’s press conference ce but his words were too o easi ly dismissed as s diplomacy in action.
You can’t go from m incompetent to “one of f the very best in the country” in the space of f four weeks.
There were no Scottish referees at the last World Cup in Qatar and there will be none at the Olympic football event in Paris this summer. Being one of the very best in Scotland doesn’t amount to much.
And it doesn’t alter my belief the SFA did what was best for them – and not this fixture – when they chose the match official for Ibrox.
Beaton’s appointment isn’t even fair on the referee himself or Clement.
Rangers fans will accuse the referee of cowardice if any controversial decision should be made in favour of Celtic.
And if Rangers win the accusation will be made that the result had as much to do with Beaton as Clement.
Any referee handling this
fixture is routinely implicated in one conspiracy theory or another.
It is the historical baggage that comes with a rivalry underpinned by suspicion concerning the transparency of the officiating.
Rodgers has always worked in times of prosperity at Celtic but this is his first season dealing with adversity. He hasn’t always handled it well.
That’s what today’s game should be all about in terms of storytelling.
But now the result will be examined in forensic detail for the way in which it was arrived at. And that, in my opinion, is the fault of
the SFA.
The appointment of Beaton as ref is insensitiveve at best and a gratuitous distraction