Joe O’Rourke has launched a blistering attack on John Beaton following Celtic’s defeat at Tynecastle on Sunday.
The chief of the Celtic Supporters Association has regular meetings with Michael Nicholson to keep the hoops CEO in contact with the feelings or ordinary supporters.
Back in the eighties and nineties the Association was a big part of Celtic with almost 100 member clubs and an allocation of tickets to be distributed for matches when Celtic fans filled the Beach End at Aberdeen and the Broomloan Road Stand at Ibrox.
These days the Association is much diminished but like legacy media outlets such as the Daily Record, Herald, Scotsman and Daily Mail the old stale men running Celtic value a dialogue and relationship with the ‘officially’ recognised Supporters group
At lunchtime on Monday on the CSA forum under the title ‘Blatant cheating cannot be condoned’ O’Rourke writes:
What can we say about yesterday at Tynecastle? I’d love to talk about football, and about how the game was lost through bad play, or because of lucky goals, but the defining moments in the game were influenced by a “BLATANT CHEAT” who was in the VAR room, non-other than the well-known Sevco supporter, John Beaton, how this “Shyster” is allowed anywhere near matches involving Celtic, or his Newco, is down to the total incompetence of Head of Referees, Crawford Allan, and his Boss, Ian Maxwell. Operation stop Celtic is at full throttle now.
I believe we could and should have avoided the situation if Adam Idah had scored with his penalty, (which I would say was on the soft side) if he scores, then Yang doesn’t get red carded, because the stage of play would have changed completely, but after the miss the “Forces of Darkness” took over, in the form of John Beaton, and a less than competent, or confident referee in Don Robertson, they realised then that Celtic could go top of the League again with a victory, so they played their major part in stopping that.
What pleased me about yesterday, and it was nothing to do with football or performance, it was that our Manager, live on television called it out, he blamed Robertson and Beaton for our defeat, and he was 100% correct to do so, I’m sure within the dungeon’s at Hampden thick heads will be getting banged together to see what their reaction will be, how can they get back at Brendan for daring to question their impartiality?
How will they be able to sanction Brendan and Celtic, when they didn’t sanction Newco for their tirade against Willie Collum? They will try to find a way.
This afternoon Celtic should find out the outcome of their appeal against the red card issued to Yang Hyun-jun at Tynecastle.
It is unclear who will represent Celtic at the hearing of the Disciplinary Committee but if it is Michael Nicholson the appeal won’t be helped by his flippant ‘Penalty Rangers’ gag at the Celtic AGM when he was asked about the refereeing of Beaton during a match against St Mirren in November.
Asked of he had spoken to the officials after the match Rodgers was dismissive of the benefits, by using the world incompetent he seems certain to be hit with a disrepute charge from the SFA.
I spoke to him in the tunnel just briefly, but it’s a waste of time if I’m honest. There is no change and I also think as well that VAR is not the problem here. That’s clear. It’s competence. And I think the first one is a great example of the game being refereed outside of the pitch.
This is the thing everyone is talking about, that the officials do their job and if it’s something that’s clear and obvious maybe step in. The referee made the decision and someone outside made another decision to say it was a sending off. So that’s the game being refereed outside of the field and in big games that costs you.
My feeling is that the game was decided by the officials. On the field and outside of the field. You guys will know me long enough to know that I don’t really comment on officials – they make mistakes and whatever else. But today that felt like really really poor officiating.
The first one is the sending off when there is no force. Show a still image of that and of course and you will see a foot up with the head near it, but it’s not the reality of the move. Don got it actually right on the field.
It was a high boot, so it’s a yellow card – no malice or force. For John Beaton to actually look at that in VAR, supposedly under no pressure, and say that was sending off? I find that incredible. The second one is worse. If you have a penalty go against you for that then there will be penalties every single weekend and midweek.
Beaton had been the favourite to referee the April 7 Glasgow Derby at Ibrox but after the incidents and comments at the weekend it seems unlikely that the SFA will go through with that decision.
If Beaton isn’t considered it looks like a choice between Alan Muir who has never been in charge of a Glasgow Derby before or Steven McLean who has been in charge twice before for Celtic’s visits to Ibrox.
CLICK HERE for Celtic’s two statements on Beaton.
CLICK HERE for Beaton’s double standards.
