John Beaton’s double standards didn’t take long to be uncovered after he nudged Don Robertson to red card Yang Hyun-jun off against Hearts at Tynecastle.
From a standing position the winger raised his foot to control a high bouncing ball as Alex Cochrane came racing towards him.
There was an element of danger in Yang’s movement, a foul and free kick against Celtic was the correct decision with the player yellow carded.
At that point Beaton decided to intervene on VAR, distanced from the action with the benefits of multiple Sky Sports cameras he decided to go it alone and recommend a red card for the Celtic winger.
A week ago operating the same Laws of the Game Theo Bair was in a much more aggressive position as he challenged Daizen Maeda, on VAR duty Gavin Duncan watched the challenge and took no action.
Still images for both incidents capture the worst moments in both incidents, in real time Yang’s raised foot was much less of a threat than Bair’s.
For context, this wasn’t even deemed a yellow last week. Today it was a straight red. I don’t think scottish football is corrupt, I do think utterly incompetent officials are killing our game, and that applies to all teams pic.twitter.com/f4coMgPooF
— Jon boy 🍀 (@jonnyablett91) March 3, 2024
Rodgers said:
I never like to comment on the officials, that’s not something I do but that cost us today the officiating, from on field from John Beaton on VAR. That was really, really poor.
The first incident – if you put a still on that of course it looks dangerous but that’s not the reality of the move. There’s no force there, the ball’s popped up, okay it’s a booking. That was really disappointing to go down to ten men with that.
As well as the Bair incident from Fir Park there are various examples of players having a boot at head height without a red card being shown.
If Yang had been running at Cochrane or had his leg bent there would have been every reason to send him off, no argument.
Yang however was stationary, Cochrane was doing the running, fell to the ground clutching his face and emerged without a mark.
After being singled out by Rodgers the spotlight is on the SF: do they hit the Celtic boss with a disrepute charge or take action against Beaton for going solo with his interpretation of the Laws, at odds with every other match official.
Robertson shouldn’t be excused from this, he has the power to make up his own mind, to over rule a suggestion from VAR.
In the bigger picture Robertson and Beaton are competitors to get the best fixtures, the international matches and trips, the expenses and most lucrative match fees.
It is only natural that there could be some resentments among match officials, if one of them gets eased aside like Willie Collum it makes the others more likely to be cashing in on a very rewarding second income stream.
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Someone can correct me if I’m wrong?
Oh. Booking
Dundee Utd player on Giokoumakis. No booking
Lundstram No booking.
Motherwell player on Maeda. No booking.
Yang Red card. pic.twitter.com/QPWHH9eZuY— Fraudulentsilverwarefreezone (@Paidallthebills) March 3, 2024
