Despite his efforts at Tynecastle on Sunday that performance wasn’t the worst of John Beaton’s career.
It was a fairly strong contender but just fell short of his actions at Ibrox in December 2018 when the club formed six years earlier by Charles Green defeated Celtic for the first time ever in the SPFL.
Brendan Rodgers took a depleted squad to Ibrox looking for their fifth successive win across the city but without Leigh Griffiths and Odsonne Edouard the prospects looked bleak, Mikey Johnston was fielded at centre-forward.
Within a few minutes Alfredo Morelos kicked out at Scott Brown, setting the tone Beaton took no action, the Colombian took that signal to heart and proceeded in the same manner throughout the match.
Ryan Christie and Brown were regular targets before he deliberately stepped on Tony Ralston’s back- an image that he celebrated with on Instagram the next day.
It was incredible displays put in by Beaton and Morelos, the Ibrox striker wasn’t even booked, typically no retrospective action was taken by the SFA unlike on Sunday at Tynecastle where they have jumped in to defend the VAR official that managed to find incidents and punishments that wouldn’t be tolerated in any serious football country.
As with many of these occasions, Beaton was backed to the hilt and discussions were had about the merits of the red cards and processes.
Within a year, 2 other near identical incidents resulted in red cards for McNulty of Hibs and Christie of Celtic. 🤷♂️ https://t.co/v1HCRlfWXA pic.twitter.com/zA7HIo0c8A— Lint (@Zeshankenzo) March 6, 2024
After six days of criticism from Celtic fans across social media the club reluctantly came up with a statement:
Celtic Football Club is surprised that there will be no disciplinary action taken by the Scottish FA regarding the incidents during the match on December 29, which have been widely addressed in the media.
It is reported that no action was taken because the match referee saw all of the incidents in question.
Given that the referee took no action at the time, this tends to suggest that such conduct, which in one instance led to a Celtic player, Anthony Ralston, being injured, is acceptable in Scottish football. That cannot be right.
On the day, Celtic did not play well enough to win the match, something we accept. However, this issue goes beyond the result of the match.
Celtic is not the only club this season to raise concerns regarding the standard of officiating at matches in Scotland, concerns which have also been shared by many commentators on the game.
In order to fully understand what is going on, Celtic, our supporters, Scottish clubs and the general Scottish football public need transparency in these matters, and we therefore call on the Scottish FA to allow the referee, John Beaton, to explain these decisions publicly as well as any match officials involved in other similar circumstances.
In the meantime, we have requested a meeting with Scottish FA Chief Executive, Ian Maxwell, and the Association’s Head of Refereeing.
There was absolutely no follow up to that statement, almost as if it was issued to pretend that Celtic were bothered or concerned about Beaton, results or the welfare of their players.
In November 2019 at the Celtic AGM Lawwell claimed that the matter had been resolved following a secret meeting with Ian Maxwell at Hampden. No further details were discussed, in 2020 and 2023 Beaton was rewarded by the SFA by taking charge of the Scottish Cup Final, unofficially given to the best performing referee of the season.
Since Sunday Celtic have announced the Yang appeal, after it was rejected they responded with their favoured surprised and disappointed routine.
There has been no comment from the CEO or Chairman on the Disrepute charge for Rodgers, Michael Nicholson’s Linkedin profile claims that he is a Sports Lawyer.
CLICK HERE for full SFA charge against Brendan Rodgers.
CLICK HERE for Celtic Supporters Association chief calls out Beaton for blatant cheating.
CLICK HERE for Celtic’s two statements on John Beaton.
