
While by no means are we making any excuses for yesterday’s latest Old Firm loss, because we’re not, if you scour our material on it today here at Ibrox Noise, nevertheless VAR boss Alan Muir flagrantly breaking protocol is a very good reason as to why Scottish referees are so scoffed at by the rest of the world and are rarely used in top-level European or international football.
Beaton was the man in the middle and he was not instructed by Muir to review Scales’ pull on Cerny, which, going by the (new) rules, was a 100% penalty and the pitchside review should have materialised.
It didn’t, and while we’re not going to sit here and say it would have won the cup for Rangers, it’s another example of poor officiating and not understanding the rules.
Scottish referees are just dreadful – Walsh, Beaton, Robertson, Muir himself – these guys are all so far below standard it’s quite pitiful and Sunday’s latest debacle is just the most recent example.
It does seem quite true that Rangers never seem to get penalties against Celtic, and we recall the Alfredo Morelos incident at Parkhead and the Johnston one similar which didn’t receive the ‘justice’ they should have.
We’re not going to go on about conspiracies, Celtic are just better than Rangers right now and being bitter about refs doesn’t change that – but the even playing field that could be offered by better refs would certainly help.
Muir broke protocol, and it certainly contributed to an eventful match at Hampden.
Pity it’s about refs again.