Referee scandal at Livi as Rangers lose out

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Referee scandal at Livi as Rangers lose out
LIVINGSTON, SCOTLAND - JULY 30: Giovanni van Bronckhorst the Rangers manager inspects the unusually large white pitch lines on the pitch before the Cinch Scottish Premiership match between Livingston FC and Rangers FC at theTony Macaroni Arena on July 30, 2022 in Livingston, United Kingdom. (Photo by Steve Welsh/Getty Images)

So this shambles at Livi, with Don Robertson encouraging Livingston to take their man off to avoid him being sent off.

Have we ever seen this in football before? So blatantly?

As we mentioned earlier, Gio rightly took a subtle dig at this, and we have to say, for our mild-mannered manager to actually take a passive aggressive swipe at the situation shows how absolutely mind-boggling it was.

For those still in the dark, Livi’s Philip Cancar got done by Scott Wright, fouled, and then received a yellow.

Fair enough.

It happened exactly the same again, a while later, only for Cancar to receive just a warning from Robertson as Wright lay sprawled out on the Livi plastic. A clear second yellow, denied by the ref.

However, the ref spoke directly to Livi captain Nicky Whelan, effectively telling him to get Cancar off or he’d send him off.

Within a few minutes, David Martindale is sending on a sub and hauling the Aussie off.

Now, Martindale is a good chap, one of us, and we have no gripe with him – he was just the beneficiary of the ref’s information and ‘instruction’.

But for a referee to actually tell a team to remove their player or he’d send that player off is literally the biggest scandal in refereeing we’ve seen in Scotland for years.

It’s absolutely, 100% blatant bias in favour of the home side or of keeping 11 men on the pitch for either side.

To hell with the rules of the game, that Cancar deserved to be sent off, Robertson decided that would not be prudent and told Livi to take him off.

In short, Robertson was assistant managing Livi.

This is literally unprecedented.

Does this bring his integrity into question? Yes, it does.

Some might argue he was just trying to ‘apply common sense’ and Lord knows we praise refs who do this when the game benefits from it as a whole.

But this wasn’t that. This was not common sense – this was inexplicable.

But I guess David Martindale will just have to accept a new assistant manager whether he likes it or not.

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8 COMMENTS

  1. I don’t think it’s unprecedented. I’ve seen referees before speak to team captains about keeping indisciplined players under control. Isn’t that good refereeing? Yes, Cancar should have been off for a second yellow, for sure. But refs are allowed to speak to team captains, it’s happened many times before.

    • No, it’s not good refereeing. It’s cheating. And we’ve not seen that before Willie. If you have, and you consider it acceptable, you might want to find a different sport you can understand the rules for.

    • Yellow card is a yellow card. Word of warning prior to your official warning in the first yellow, fair enough, cannot commit the same offence within minutes and expexct to just be spoken to.
      Bobby Madden sent a guy off for 2 yellows within seconds. First may have been harsh, but he done it again and was rightly sent off.
      Infuriating that VAR would do nothing about that though, when they eventually decide to implement it half way through our season!

  2. Cheating at the highest level of refereeing. Robertson should be bared from referring in the spl. Period.

  3. Sensible move from the referee, maybe other refs could have done the same with morelos before he was sent off in games against celtic, cancar was hyped up and trying, smaller teams get little luck against the Glasgow teams, accept what a referee has to do and get on with the game.

  4. Buckle up folks , this will be a continuous pattern for this corrupt green leaning set up . Anti Rangers , biased rotten mob placating, happened yesterday at breeze block tower . Diving whole game rewarded with free kick after free kick . Sheep Shaggers a disgrace should be embarrassed, make sure they will not play like that against the Famous

  5. It has happened many times before Hugh Dallas told the Rangers bench to take Stuart Munro of at Aberdeen or he would be sent off . Stuart Dougal again told the Rangers bench to take Nacho Novo of against Hibs or he would be sent off. Dougie Mcdonald told Dundee United to take Gordan Petric of against Hearts. It’s not anything against Rangers

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