In a season where their team has won the SPL comfortably, reached the Scottish Cup semi-final and League Cup final, Celtic supporters have still often voiced their opinion that Scottish referees are biased against their team. With manager Neil Lennon often criticising referees after games Celtic lost, and even taking to Twitter to claim refereeing decisions against Celtic were ‘personal’ (Oh wait, the SFA couldn’t prove it was Lennon that Tweeted that, on his own account), they’ve almost been encouraged to hold that belief.
The reality is that it is laughable for either side of the Old Firm to claim that referees are biased against them. The two biggest clubs in Scotland get more decisions in their favour against the rest of the SPL teams than those teams get against Rangers or Celtic, just like smaller teams will against Manchester United in England, or AC Milan in Italy, or Barcelona in Spain etc etc. But while this won’t stop Celtic fans from crying conspiracy, perhaps the 2011-12 disciplinary charts will at least go some way to finally proving to Celtic supporters that referees are not out to get them.
Because Celtic finished the season with the best disciplinary record in the league, picking up just 40 points in a league table that saw Hibs finish with the worst record, on 84 points. A yellow card equals 1 point, with 2 points for a red card, and Celtic finished with a total of 32 bookings and 4 reds. Dundee United are next on the list with 49 points from 47 bookings and one red, while Rangers had the second worst record with 68 yellow cards and 6 reds. Hibs had a massive 80 yellows, with 2 red cards.
Of course, 32 yellow cards works out at less than a 1 per game average, and a look at those 32 yellows in more detail shows that Celtic players received just 10 yellow cards at home in 19 SPL games, a staggering 15 fewer than the next lowest total of 25. These are hardly numbers that suggest Scottish referees have it in for Celtic, because if they do, why aren’t they dishing out so many yellow and red cards that Celtic have a much bigger discipline problem?
The answer is of course that there is no refereeing bias against Celtic. While the club has produced dossiers that apparently show a ‘high number’ of wrong decisions going against them in the past, and even (allegedly) gone so far as to hire a private detective to follow Hugh Dallas, the reality is that if they lose games, they lose them fairly, not because the officials have conspired against them.
That’s why it’s so tedious to hear Neil Lennon complaining about referees or supporters chanting ‘Who’s the mason/hun in the black’ or even some alleged ‘journalists’ encouraging Celtic supporters to believe that the SFA and referees are
+against them. Every club in every league in every country will sometimes have bad decisions go against them, but it is never because the referee hates the team that feel victimised by his call.
>With all the troubles facing Rangers at the moment, there is a very real chance that Celtic can win the SPL for the foreseeable future, and they should be able to do so without resorting to pointing the finger at referees when they drop points. It’s time for them to wake up to the reality that the right decision will not always be made, and that this is something that happens to every club.
The statistics show that Celtic are not the victim of biased refereeing, let’s hope that in the future, they’ll concentrate on their own failings when they drop points, and not point fingers.
For more blogs, follow me on Twitter @DavidWDougan and @TheGlassCase
Introducing the neat little app that’ll pay you to view content tailored to your interests:
ThisisFutbol.com are seeking new writers to join the team! If you’re passionate about football, drop us a line at “thisisfutbol.com@snack-media.com” to learn more.
Flawed logic, statistics averaged out over the season and no mention of big decisions. Can’t wait to read your next piece on no SFA bias against Rangers haha Looking forward to Wednesday night television now.
The figures don’t show anything – perhaps Celtic are a cleaner team.
Flawed logic, statistics averaged out over the season and no mention of big decisions. Can’t wait to read your next piece on no SFA bias against the two bob mob haha Looking forward to Wednesday night television now.
pure and utter pish from a rangers supporting guy, masquerading as a journalist!!
what a skewed view portraying itself as unbiased journalism! Number of bookings sugeests nothing other than that celtic players behave better. It tells you nothing about key refereeing decisions in games which is were bias may or may not be seen.
This is obvz someone who doesn’t even watch any of the Celtic games take a watch of each game and look at the referees decisions then re write this
One of the worst articles ever on here.
Schoolboy logic displayed to an inept level.
flawed doesn’t even begin to cover this tripe. Celtic and Rangers are likely to spend more time attacking than any other side, thus would be expected to atract more fouls in the box. Say a Celtic player is fouled in the box 20 times in one seaosn and we get 10 penalties, does this mean we getter better decision than Dunfermline who got 5 penalties from say 6 fouls in the box? Same can be said for offsides, red cards etc. Get the blue tinted specs off and write something balanced.
We’re talkin about BIG decisions here and because Celtic have more to play for at the business end of the season, thats when its matters how the decisions go, not some cr@p stats over the course of a season.
Celtic simply are not a dirty team because they have the best players that dominate most game which in turn means they foul less and get fouled more.
Between the last old firm game and the 2 Hampden visits, some of the decision were typical anti- Celtic and laughable to say the least. At the end of the day if referee’s can’t make the correct decision in the heat of the moment, they simply don’t get considered for major international competitions. You hardly see any Scottish officials for the simple fact they’re performances are just not good enough and Celtic have been on the receiving end of many a “honest mistake” this year, mark my words. 😀 HH 1NL YNWA.
Seriously poor article that tells us nothing except that the author is perhaps trying to prove that he is a dog by quacking like a duck.
see the timmies are never happy they mump and moan all season long about refs then get the best record funny that the same last season moaning about penalties and guess what they had more than anybody CELTIC ALWAYS CHEATED NEVER DEFEATED
That’s because we play attacking football, Old Co just run about kicking players and punting the ball up field. Anyway the scum do walking away !!!
Sorry David , but your logic is that of a child.
While we may have had a slightly fairer shake of things this season, two decisions blow that out of the water.
First the penalty kick awarded to Hearts in the SC semi, a wrong decision, given in a split second,for a ball to hand incident from about a yard. (Now every week we get told this is not a penalty in the media, apart from when this decision was given it was pathetic how the Scottish media tried to justify it).
fast forward two minutes and an almost identical decision results in no penalty at the other end. WHY?? Bias is the only explanation.
In the semi-final, Victor Wanyama patted the ball down with his hand, after Joe Ledley had deflected a shot down, and that is what Euan Norris gave the penalty for. At the other end, Andy Webster didn’t handle the ball. The end.
It’s one thing to make a mistake in the heat of the moment it is another willfully to misrepresent the facts. The problem with your analysis is this is not like the old days when what was reported in the media was treated as gospel. It was on TV, everyone saw the incident and we know the rules.
If everyone saw the incident, why are you claiming that it wasn’t a penalty when Wanyama handled it?
The factual inaccuracy in the first sentence told me all I needed to know actually. Poorly researched article ineptly written and shoddily put together and based on, well nothing really. Won’t be reading this reporter’s guff again 🙂
I think if you want to be taken seriously you will have to put a better case that you have so far. You have an assumption that every team get the same number of cards. What tosh, of course the top clubs get less cards, look at the amount of possession that have in games. I am not sure if there is bias, but you article is very weak. The highlights of games in SPL in general will show that the Refs, biased or not make a lot of very bad calls.
David
This might come as a shock but if you do a little research you might find that Celtic fans are not the only people who think referees are against them. If you look a few posts above you’ll find a Rangers supporter who thinks Celtic have managed to convince the SFA to not give decisions against Celtic this year!
You can’t go five minutes without hearing the fans or the manager of some diddy team complaining that the referees are helping the old firm.
Every fan of every team thinks the referees are against them. Practically every manager has claimed so in public.
Your premise it correct. Celtic fans are mistaken. But so are you in trying to call this a Celtic problem.
Also, despite being correct you done a really dismal job of proving your hypothesis, as others have correctly pointed out.
Not worthy of comment.
A headline that promised much and delivered nothing! The stats that you refer to show nothing other than Celtic players have had less bookings than any other team – your deduction therefor that Celtic do not suffer from refereeing bias is quite simply astonishing! Perhaps Celtic do not suffer from refereeing bias – but your article most certainly does not prove this. A poorly researched and written article.
When British boxers fought in America, the saying was that we had to knock them out to get a draw. It’s the same with Celtic: just because we won the league and didn’t have many yellows doesn’t mean we were favoured. We won the SPL DESPITE refereeing decisions, NOT because of them!
These stats also show that Celtic players have been warned to tackle only when they ARE sure they can win the ball, for if they miss time the potential for a straight red is there… Evidence; Wanyama’s tackle v Blacks the week or two following…..
So ur judging it by yellow and red cards??? Ludicrous and am totaly shocked by this piece uv threw together, should be apalled at ur self in all honesty!!! Celtic have not had the big descisons in the big games, hearts got a penalty against us that never was and the 4, 2 game at ibrox the referee was a joke and was cleary sent out to do what he could to help them get a result!! Countless, baffling descions has went against us for 4 year, even jonger