SFA's Appointment of John Beaton: A Step Forward or Reinforcing the Power?

Two days after playing God in the match between Dundee and Motherwell, the SFA have appointed John Beaton to referee the League Cup Final on December 15.

Some fans seem to think that Willie Collum’s appointment as Head of Refereeing at the SFA is a step forward, a new beginning.

It is anything but, it reinforces the power of the Lanarkshire Referees Association where Hugh Dallas remains the driving force as demonstrated by the incredible rise of his hopeless son Andrew through the ranks.

Andy was on the UEFA list before he had refereed a Celtic first team match, in February 2019 he awarded Steven Gerrard’s side four penalties in one match against St Mirren at Ibrox.

His crimelist is endless, when he had to retire early due to a sore leg he got his final match at Ibrox quickly followed by the SFA deciding to create jobs as full time VAR officials. Greg Aitken from Ayrshire was also provided with a job to highlight the drive for diversity from the SFA.

Beaton, Dallas and Collum are all from the Lanarkshire network, every Glasgow Derby since 2016 has been refereed by a member of the Lanarkshire or Glasgow Referee Association, unlike England the SFA believes that their officials aren’t impacted by referees supporting certain teams, and hating other clubs.

With his background well known Beaton will take charge at Hampden a week on Sunday, it is the fifth Derby match of 2025 with the man from the Crown Bar in Bellshill refereeing the fixture for the third time in a calendar year.

From the December 2018 fixture at Ibrox when Alfredo Morelos was given licence to boot lumps out of Celtic players to the penalty decisions involving Carl Starfelt in January 2023 Beaton shows incredible consistency in his decision making. The SFA said nothing, Collum was on VAR.

As well as his dubious decision making Beaton stands accused of failing to protect the welfare of players on the park, the first responsibility of officials.

On Wednesday night at Dens Park Kofi Balmer of Motherwell suffered a serious head injury, blood was coming from his mouth as he lay on the ground as Dundee raced to the other end of the park to score.

“He decided to play God and decide whether it was a bad enough head knock or not”
Stuart Kettlewell was not happy with John Beaton’s decision to play on in the build-up to Dundee’s second goal while defender Kofi Balmer was down with a head knock last night ⤵️#BBCFootball pic.twitter.com/aSNkwLx5NK
— BBC Sport Scotland (@BBCSportScot) December 5, 2024

Following up on that incident Stuart Kettlewell went into further detail about how God disregarded the well being of his player- and the cover up by Collum for his Lanarkshire colleague.

BBC Scotland reported:

Stuart Kettlewell has called for Scottish football to take head knocks seriously after failing to get clarity on why Motherwell’s game with Dundee was not stopped following a double blow for Kofi Balmer.
The Motherwell boss feels defender Balmer was fouled when he attacked a corner before being dragged to the ground and caught with a knee to the face and stud to the head.
Balmer was still lying in the opposite penalty area with blood coming out of his mouth when referee John Beaton played on, allowing Dundee to break upfield to score.
Kettlewell says the club had received no clarity after talks between chief executive Brian Caldwell and the Scottish FA’s head of referees Willie Collum following the 4-1 defeat.
“Why I say that is because we’ve had a mixed message, on whether there was a head knock, or whether they’d seen a head knock, or whether the head knock was there but they didn’t think it was too significant, or they just didn’t completely see the player lying on the ground,” said Kettlewell.
“So I feel we’ve had a few different versions of that until we get to the end point, which is ultimately, if we’d seen it, we would have stopped the game.
“‘He’s on the ground’, was my exact words, ‘he’s holding his head, and he’s motionless.’ Those were my words. I understand that the referee might be following the ball but that’s why it’s a team of officials.
“As match officials, when you see someone lying on the ground, falling to the ground, holding their head, not moving, you do not get to decide how bad that is. I thought universally that was just something that stopped.
“We’re going to have to start taking these head injuries seriously. How bad does it need to get before somebody actually starts to take it really, really seriously and starts to implement real strategy to try and protect the player, get medical attention on the pitch as quick as you possibly can when there’s a blow to the head or two blows to the head?”

Back in March, Brendan Rodgers described Beaton as incompetent following a trademark performance on VAR as Celtic lost 2-0 to Hearts at Tynecastle.

The Celtic boss was given a two match touchline ban, one suspended, Michael Nicholson went deeper into hiding with Beaton in charge of successive Celtic SPFL matches in April.

At the recent Celtic AGM Nicholson was presented with the opportunity to back up his manager’s comments on Beaton, he replied like a nervous Tory Cabinet Minister being questioned about Partygate.