The Hampden penalties that John Beaton denied Celtic

For reasons known only to Willie Collum, John Beaton will referee Sunday’s League Cup Final at Hampden.

Back in September the man from the Crown Bar in Bellshill was put in charge of the SPFL clash between the two Glasgow clubs, a few months after Brendan Rodgers had described his performance on VAR duty at Tynecastle as incompetent.

The Celtic boss served a one match touchline ban for his comments, many Celtic fans would use stronger language to describe Beaton and his interventions in their side’s last domestic defeat.

Being put in charge of the Glasgow Derby is the highest accolade available to Scottish referees, at the moment there are only five referees with experience of taking charge of the fixture.

The decision to pick Beaton tomorrow says as much about how Collum rates Nick Walsh, Don Robertson, Kevin Clancy and Steven McLean as the man in charge on Sunday.

With another Derby match on January 2, Beaton could have been given that fixture by Collum but the new Head of Refereeing has opted to give his colleague in the Lanarkshire Refereeing Association successive appointments for the most important fixture in the Scottish game

Out of five Glasgow Derby matches played in 2024 Beaton will have taken charge of three, alongside his VAR appointment for the Scottish Cup Final in May.

Twice in the first half of that match there were penalty incidents involving Kyogo Furuhashi. At Tynecastle in March Beaton was quick to spot a ‘handball’ by Tomoki Iwata, called Don Robertson over for a VAR review with the decision to award a penalty inevitable. At Hampden in May he was much more reluctant to get involved.

Was it this Scottish cup final from this year?
When this handball didn’t result in a penalty? https://t.co/onVndssgap pic.twitter.com/mFVY6nlnJy

— Lint (@Zeshankenzo) December 14, 2024

This Scottish cup final from this year?
The one where a rangers player comes through the back of Kyogo as the other one is pulling Kyogo back and no penalty was awarded? https://t.co/onVndssgap pic.twitter.com/OQZu6xvm5S

— Lint (@Zeshankenzo) December 14, 2024

The two incidents above are exactly the scenarios that VAR is there, a clue is in the title- Video Assistant Referee. Beaton’s job was to assist Nick Walsh, to spot the decisions out of his eye-line.

The first incident sees Kyogo pushed to the ground, with no opponent to confront him the ball struck Ben Davies on his groin then up to his right arm as he got the ball under control and played it out for a corner. With play stopped Beaton had time to review the incident, no one was surprised that play quickly resumed with a Celtic corner.

In the second incident a struggling Ben Davies pushes Kyogo over, while doing that Leon Balogun arrives behind the striker to strike his kicking leg.

Beaton had various angles on the incident, play wasn’t even paused for him to check despite two possible penalty claims. Very little was made of the penalty claim in the post match media coverage.

Every decision on Sunday will be watched very closely, Beaton on the park will be under scrutiny and his mate Alan Muir on VAR, a man that is no stranger to controversy at Hampden, coming to the fore when he ‘missed’ the handball from Josh Meekings of Inverness Caley Thistle in the 2015 Scottish Cup semi-final.

Despite being given the opportunity at the 2024 AGM to comment on the incompetent claim against Beaton, Celtic CEO Michael Nicholson opted for his favourite answer of deflection.

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