The Don Robertson backlash

Even by the abysmal standards of Scottish referees Don Robertson produced an incredible performance as he refereed the Celtic v Hibs SPFL Premiership match.

There is no possible justification for a free kick count of 1-16 against a team that had 77% possession of the ball.

It is impossible to come up with that outcome while applying the Laws of the Game fairly to both teams.

A bit like the second best team in a country two going 60 plus matches in the SPFL with conceding a penalty but in Scotland, under the SFA, Willie Collum and Crawford Allan strange occurrences are the norm.

The SFA have put 14 different referees in charge of SPFL matches this season, for reasons known only to Collum Robertson has been in charge of 50% of Celtic’s matches, three games out of six.

ROBERTSON STATS BREAKDOWN

Celtic matches tend to have the ball in play for 50-55 minutes, across Europe the norm is about 57 minutes but Celtic’s opponents are rewarded for their time wasting with a variety of ploys used to break up play and waste time.

Three times in the first half Hibs players fell to the ground around their own penalty box, it is an obvious ploy with Robertson adding on only three minutes to the first half, five would have been fairer.

With Hibs having 22% possession of the ball that works out at 726 seconds, just over 12 minutes, they were given a free kick every 45 seconds on the ball.

Martin Boyle is a master of winning free kicks, combined with the indulgence of Robertson the outcome was inevitable.

ROBERTSON BACKGROUND

The first time that Robertson was noted was in April 2016 when he awarded Ross County a late penalty against Celtic, Alex Schalk took an outrageous dive with almost a metre between the striker and Erik Sviatchenko.

After that match Rodgers said:

Erik is nowhere near touching him and the referee’s actually in a good position, the linesman’s in a good position so to give a penalty for that was absolutely incredible.

Players will do that, it’s always happened, and in particular over the last number of years you’ll see it and if you’re Jim [McIntyre] you’re delighted you get it but that is blatant cheating. And it’s an awful, awful decision to cost us the full three points.

That decision sent Robertson towards the top in Scottish football, much like John Beaton hasn’t looked back since he allowed Bilel Moshni to attack the Albion Rovers goalkeeper and push the ball over the line to secure a draw for Ally McCoist’s side in a Scottish Cup tie.

The Shalk incident was a few weeks after a brutal above the knee attack on Kieran Tierney by Ryan Bowman resulted in only a yellow card- from Robertson.

After that assault Rodgers said:

My only worry at this moment is protection for my players. I’ve seen two tackles in the last two games that weren’t good tackles at all. The tackle on Kieran Tierney was horrendous.

This is a kid who’s coming through, he’s 19, one of the great prospects of Scottish football. I’ve a boy who’s a brilliant coach on my staff, John Kennedy, who was also a brilliant prospect who in one challenge lost his career.

Those incidents have advanced Robertson’s career.

In March 2024 Rodgers described John Beaton’s performance on VAR duty in a defeat to Hearts at Tynecastle as incompetent, Robertson was the match referee happy to go along with Beaton’s suggestions to send off Yang Hyun-jun and award a penalty against Tomoki Iwata.

CELTIC’S REACTION

Since the summer of 2012 Celtic have taken on a policy of not challenging anything from the SFA, prior to that summer there had been a variety of issues notably between Neil Lennon and SFA President George Peat.

When the reaction on social media reaches a certain level the club will put out a statement which normally expresses their surprise or disappointment, sometimes both.

That deflection tactic is followed by absolutely nothing, by doing nothing other match officials know that they can do as they please in Celtic matches without any recriminations. The reverse is the case, it accelerates your progress onto the lucrative UEFA circuit.

In the 2015 Scottish Cup semi-final against Inverness Caley Thistle Steven McLean and Alan Muir refused to apply the Laws of the Game when Josh Meekings handled the ball inside the six yard box.

A year later McLean was rewarded with being put in charge of the Scottish Cup Final, last season until he took things too far Muir had been promoted into the role of being a full-time VAR official.

And so it goes on.

While Celtic take a passive view on match officials we will get performances like Robertson, things will only get worse with leadership like Michael Nicholson or Peter Lawwell.