More than a day on from the controversy at Livingston not a peep has been heard out of Michael Nicholson or anyone else inside Celtic.
Almost to a fan as they watched Sunday’s match develop the big talking point was the refusal to award Celtic a first half penalty when Kyogo Furuhashi was cemented by Mikey Devlin.
Unless you are as hard of thinking as Kris Boyd it was a stonewaller as the Livingston captain charged through the Celtic striker, firstly making contact with his heel before his knee followed through by hitting Kyogo on the back of the thigh to complete the job.
It was as obvious a penalty as you’ll find, the complete opposite to the travesty of a decision at Tynecastle when John Beaton picked out a handball against Tomoki Iwata that Robertson sheepishly agreed with.
For describing it as incompetent Brendan Rodgers got a one match touchline ban, bearing in mind Beaton’s background most Celtic fans would have used another description for his decision making from Tynecastle.
Reacting to the disappointment of the Rodgers ban Celtic stated ‘we will continue to press for the highest standards in relation to the VAR process in Scottish football’.
Despite being a Sports Lawyer Nicholson didn’t represent Rodgers at his Hampden appeal.
What better way to drive the demand for the highest standards that than to get Crawford Allan to produce the audio from Alan Muir to explain why he didn’t award a penalty or suggest that Robertson takes a look at the monitor.
With the audio shared the fans would understand the decision making process, perhaps there was something spotted by the Aberdeen based VAR official that has escaped the Internet Bampots who have spent more than a day watching it from a variety of angles and speeds.
From Celtic there has been silence. A free pass to Muir to do whatever he feels like with VAR calls without any accountability.
Tomorrow morning the SFA will announce the match officials for Sunday’s game at Ibrox, Muir could be given his first ever Glasgow Derby, he’s been in and around the big fixtures since the 2015 Scottish Cup semi-final when he missed Josh Meekings handling a net bound header from Leigh Griffiths.
A cup semi-final incident that was never explained although one year later match referee Steven McLean was rewarded by being put in charge of the Scottish Cup Final. These things happen when you allow them.
A simple 100 word statement on the Celtic website regarding the Kyogo penalty claim including a pledge to keep supporters informed of the response from the outgoing Head of Refereeing would have done the job perfectly. Recently Motherwell shared with their fans their exact problems with the decisions from a match against Aberdeen.
Instead, in the same manner of his mentor, Nicholson remains on mute hoping that the manager and players can overcome the odds at Ibrox on Sunday, if they can’t Celtic could be starting their next home match five points behind in second place in the Premiership.
If a statement was too daring for the Celtic CEO a few words to the club’s network of media messengers would have got the word out, it certainly worked across the city with Willie Collum posted missing for 12 rounds of fixtures.
At some stage this month Celtic will press the button on the Season Ticket Renewal campaign, 80% of fans will sign up quickly without question but if things go wrong in the SPFL there could be some malcontents out there needing convinced that all 12 Premiership clubs are playing to one set of rules.
There is enough evidence easily accessable to suggest that isn’t the case.
If the refereeing at Ibrox is as bad as it was at Tynecastle and Livingston there is every chance that Celtic will lose out on the park, if that happens Nicholson and his boardroom chums will have as many questions to answer as their friends at Hampden.
And not many fans will be laughing if the Celtic CEO cracks his favourite gag when asked to explain refereeing issues effecting the outcome of matches.
CLICK HERE for the rumours about Crawford Allan’s SFA exit.
💬 “Penalty Rangers”
Celtic chief Michael Nicholson’s cutting reply when quizzed on referees and VAR at AGMhttps://t.co/6vJYJ8p66Ihttps://t.co/6vJYJ8p66I
— Scottish Sun Sport (@scotsunsport) November 22, 2023
🗣️ “I’m really surprised Don Robertson wasn’t sent over to the monitor to have a look… Kyogo gets to the ball first.”
🗣️ “He’s already down before the contact’s made.”The studio disagree over Celtic’s claim for a penalty vs Livingston ⬇️ pic.twitter.com/Ox0usTvefJ
— Sky Sports Scotland (@ScotlandSky) March 31, 2024
