Michael Nicholson has refused to back up Brendan Rodgers’ claim that John Beaton was incompetent the last time that Celtic played at Tynecastle.
Back at the start of March on VAR duty the man from the Crown Bar in Bellshill prompted Don Robertson into sending off Yang Hyun-Jun and awarding a penalty against Tomoki Iwata.
Similar incidents in matches before and after that fixture have resulted in very different outcomes, afterwards Rodgers described Beaton as incompetent which brought about a two match touchline ban from the SFA, one on a suspended basis.
There was the usual silence from Celtic, when Rodgers returned to the dug out at Ibrox in April Beaton was back in charge giving another of the type of performances that has become his trademark.
Beaton also took charge of the opening Glasgow Derby of the season, a clear sign that his status remains the same under Willie Collum as it was with Crawford Allan.
At the 2022 Celtic AGM Nicholson urged shareholders to give VAR time to settle in, since then Andrew Dallas, Greg Aitken and Alan Muir have been promoted to become full time VAR officials in a very clear statement from the SFA.
Hail, rain or shine the SFA are assured of a mute response from the Celtic board with Nicholson answering a question about Beaton in the manner of a Tory politician in full deflection mode.
Covering my second question at the AGM Football Scotland reports:
Q11: Michael, you were asked a question last season, last year, about John Beaton, and you gave a comical answer to that. I think it was a penalty to Rangers, was your reply. Our last domestic defeat was at Tynecastle in March. After that game, Brendan Rodgers described John Beaton as incompetent. Do you feel that John Beaton was incompetent in that match or was that a slur in the character of a top referee in Scottish football?
Michael Nicholson: I was being jovial about penalty Rangers last year but I think this is a question about refereeing ultimately and what we’ve been very clear about over the last number of years is that as with other aspects of the game we always want to drive standards as high as possible.
I think if you look at what’s happened in the last year or so around VAR for example, that has come to pass. The work that we’ve been doing behind the scenes over a number of years with the Scottish FA, with the SPFL, with the other clubs have led to improvements in the standards and the processes around VAR.
There’s a new VAR show where there’s a transparency level of what’s been seen before. There’s a new process where clubs can question the decisions of referees and on-field decisions. And all of that is transparent. So as I say, that’s how we will try to drive standards, not picking out any individuals for discussion at an AGM.
Q11: Have you seen any evidence beyond the squiggly line disallowing Kyogo’s goal in the Glasgow Derby at the start of this season?
Michael Nicholson: I think, as I say, I think the focus is on what we can do to impact positive change, not to look at specific examples.
Even using the cropping tool in windows you can see that these lines are not parallel and therefore shouldn’t be used to distinguish if someone is offside or not. Someone’s completely at it pic.twitter.com/8e3RRJ0lY2
— The Huddleboard (@huddleboard) September 2, 2024
John Beaton refereed the 3-0 match in September with his Lanarkshire based colleague Andrew Dallas on VAR duty.
Nicholson might be thrilled by the VAR show but that enthusiasm for selected transparency isn’t shared by many Celtic supporters.
In 11 SPFL matches Collum has admitted that Brendan Rodgers’ side should have been awarded penalties against Kilmarnock and Motherwell, incidents that were reviewed by Aitken and Muir who both decided not to apply the Laws of the Game and award a penalty.
In the most recent report on the Key Match Incidents a majority of three against two of the panel decided that Reo Hatate should have been sent off at Kilmarnock.
Joe Wright’s elbow into the face of Adam Idah was correctly only a booking according to the KMI panel while no reference was made to Liam Donnelly’s double assault on Kasper Schmeichel or Fraser Murray’s chest high kick on Tony Ralston.
Tonight Steven McLean will referee the match against Hearts, almost a decade on from denying Celtic a penalty against Inverness Caley Thistle when Josh Meekings handled a Leigh Griffiths header.
With Aitken again on VAR Rodgers knows from painful past experience that something special will be required to take full points from Tynecastle tonight.
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