With every single newspaper filled once more with complaints about Rangers getting away with a player not being sent off, one thing Celtic does better than anyone else is they know how to work the referee.

Everyone knows if you can get the referee to side with you, have a tremendous advantage.

It does not matter what game you play. It’s just a fact.

So, it’s no surprise that the number of controversial decisions begin to rise as soon as Rangers begin to draw level with Celtic.

And I’m predicting that the decisions will become even more frantic over the next few weeks..

And, as we have said already said repeatedly at IN, we just have to factor this in, that Celtic will always get at least a dozen points handed to them each season with all these last minute penalties, and dodgy decisions being made in their favour.

Now some might say that this is just the way things are in Scotland.

Every single time Rangers start to mount a serious challenge, the decisions will start to become strange. It’s just normal.

But what gets me is this problem does not affect Rangers alone.

To be honest I am shocked that Hibs have not made more noise about this.

Recently, Hibs had two clear penalty shouts.

Both weren’t even looked at. One would be harsh if it was given, as the Celtic player was so close when the ball hit his hand, but his hand was above his shoulder (and we, in Europe, had a similar penalty awarded against – so it would not be unreasonable for a penalty to be awarded), and the other was a nudge on the leg, which made the Hibs striker lose his balance. That was a clear penalty.

Now Hibs are fighting to be in Europe next year, and that one extra point might make the difference between them being in the Europe, or missing the cut. So, if I was a Hibs supporter, I would be screaming to have their match investigated.

The fact is Celtic getting handed all these extra chances in matches could result in the best Scottish team not getting to the Champions League, which is where just a few more wins could make a very big difference to Scotland’s coefficient.

Yet, after Hibs lost to Celtic, all we heard were complaints about Rangers….

And, being honest, after the Ayr match Brown was always going to be talking about Rangers and how we should have had a player sent off.

It wasn’t because he cared about Ayr.

No, Brown did it, because it was just another chance to fill the air with their Rangers are lucky banter.

and when the ref does finally make a bad decision against us….what happens?

…the response is it’s OK.

Because Rangers had so many “lucky” decisions “before that”.

See, the real reason why they all make so much noise about Rangers being “lucky” is it creates a playing field where cheating by the ref is OK.

It gives the refs the cover they need to make all their “bad” choices, because to the “neutral” viewer it just seems that everything is just balancing out (note we previously showed that is not the case).

So, what is the solution, and god we need a solution.

The way I see it, the recent call to ban the worst referees from refereeing any further Rangers matches is not going to work, and it might make the problem worse.

The Celtic press will just work the next ref, and they will make sure that the next ref will be under even more pressure to make the “right” calls [against Rangers],

And when that ref does finally makes a series of blatant wrong decisions, it really doesn’t matter to them, because Celtic will be 50 million richer, and their finger prints will be nowhere near the crime scene.

So we can bitch all we want, but in the end there is only one solution

And the solution I think is simple.

The solution is audio….

We need to hear what the ref and the VAR room are saying.

That will immediately make the refs far more careful in what they say, and that they need to be careful will affect the decisions they make.

So, what do you think? Do you have a better solution?