One Journalist Suggests Rangers Have a Case Concerning Referees

ao2 said:
Remember the old saying "these things even out over a season"? Well in Scotland they don't. It's plainly obvious the officials not only have it in for Rangers and treat us differently to the rest, but they clearly favour the scum and turn a blind eye to most indiscretions commited by them and give them every borderline decision going. Whether that's through preference as they support them or fear of the flak that will inevitably come their way if they do their job properly I don't know, but it's plain as day we are not on a level playing field. I wish we could get out of the shit hole that is Scottish football and all its corruption and/or incompetence but we're stuck with it I'm afraid.
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I think mainly it's through fear especially after Beaton had to get a police escort and received death threats after refereeing the old firm game that saw our first victory against them in years. Their intimidation has certainly reaped rewards for them.
 
All of the above didn't also include the Sheep being allowed to repeatedly foul for 90 minutes recently at Ibrox, which cost us another 2 points.
 
bristolbear_06 said:
It's spot on but too little too late I fear, I expect us to get a few favourable decisions in the coming weeks and the opposite for them to portray some pretend balance. As many have said the 29th against them should have been the last straw.
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See that there lies the problem with me ,they should be playing to same bloody rules across the board and clearly arent
 
It tells you everything about Scottish referees when the journo quotes two decisions that actually went in Rangers favour and one of them was a fucking colts game.

Downright fucking cheats and no “they’re just poor” simpleton will ever change my view on it.
 
Kylegib said:
I think mainly it's through fear especially after Beaton had to get a police escort and received death threats after refereeing the old firm game that saw our first victory against them in years. Their intimidation has certainly reaped rewards for them.
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In his case perhaps. Same with Madden. But Clancy and Collum I'm not so sure it's not bias, conscious or otherwise.
 
Tom1974 said:
Of course you do know what will happen. When the league is done & dusted miraculously we will get loads of contentious decisions in our favour. Then the press will say what have we got to complain about.
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We got our 'share' of penalties in one game. Four in total two of which were marginal. Very strange as it didnt really help us but did give our enemies lots of ammo to claim refs are biased in favour of us.
 
The scary thing is, this article isn't even the tip of the iceberg. You could have doubled it in length regarding decisions that have went against us in the last 3 months and that's before you even get on to game changing decisions going in Celtic's favour.

Goals change games. A goal being denied to us when we are on top or a goal being allowed against us when we are cruising are circumstances which totally change the flow of a game and lead to points being dropped.

People who are saying we just need to make the refs irrelevant by being better are totally missing the point with regards to how much they are costing us. Come the end of the season, these decisions could actually be the difference between us winning and losing the league.

If Celtic had even a 1/4 of the decisions against them in recent months that we have had in the thick of a title race they'd have stormed the SFA offices long ago. Refs would have needed police protection after some of their games.
 
I would rather Gerrard, McAllister or someone else from the club was coming out with this sort of statement and firing it right at the SFA and the SPFL, it can't take much to pull together a dossier of all of these "mistakes" and inconsistencies even just from our 2-1 win in December and present them in orderly fashion and ask for answers.

It's happening far too often for it to be down to incompetence and if it is purely incompetence then those refs responsible , although it seems like all of them, should be getting punished or demoted as I would in my job.

Also the other side of the coin is the favorable decisions that "other" teams seem to receive even when it comes down to the issuing of yellow cards, these do have an impact during the game and ultimately
over the course of season when players are suspended.

I don't expect Rangers to be treated favorably by the refs but I want us and all teams to refereed fairly, consistently and to the same standards every game but that won't happen until we start speaking up for our selves.
 
Not really a brilliant article at all. Its a start getting this out in the open but Refs ARE costing us. FACT.
Yes its undeniable our form is poor, but are we not allowed to win ugly the same as other teams ? Apparently not with our Refs.

We've had so much negative press that we jump on a powder puff article as fantastic. Why feel the need to mention Goldsons hand ball and the Colts game (WTF has the Colts game got to do with anything) - a pathetic attempt to somehow claim that Rangers get the breaks as well ? Absolutely laughable. If someone were to do a programme on wrong refereeing decisions against Rangers it wouldn't be one episode it would be a mini series and that's just this season alone.

If he really wanted to do a decent article why not call on the SFA and Referees Supervisor to explain these decisions and ask why the Scottish game is compromised.
 
The simple truth is;

Had Clancy second yellow carded Brown, Julien and Bolingoli with the same zest in which he dismissed Alfie the filth would have come back from the winter break with four arguably first choice players unavailable (including Christie). This would undoubtedly have unsettled them!

The assessment that we don’t kill teams off can be directly attributed to the way we are refereed. We press teams creating penalty incidents, cause players to make rash red card tackles, score perfectly legitimate goals only to have officialdom not do their job. (Or do they?)

Whilst being a reasonable article it shines little or no light on such correlation, nor does it address the fact that the filths ‘all conquering run’ has been interspersed with some pretty average performances in which refereeing decisions in their favour clearly changed the direction of the game.

How much does this and the fact that our board seem just to bend over and take it up the ronson lighter make the players feel that largely they have done their job only to have their bonus, trophy winning and potential legend status negated by corrupt officials bent on guiding the filth to their goal of ten in a row at their expense!

Are our players bottlers or have they become jaded by the corruption and the board seeming to acquiesce in their downfall?
 
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I’ll be the first to admit that we aren’t playing well, but I really don’t think it’s that unreasonable to blame the referees for where we currently are.

1-0 leads becoming 1-1 instead of 2-0 changes games completely. I hate people on here talking about the current squads’ lack of mentality. If it wasn’t for continuously shocking refereeing decisions, we would be grinding out wins when not playing well – ironically - the mentality of champions. And a run of wins, no matter how ugly, will have naturally brought confidence back.

Can you imagine knowing you’re not going to get given that penalty, or that you’re going to be wrongly adjudged to have fouled in the box each and every game and that the big decisions are going to go against you as a player? That’s where the nerves and frustrations are coming in and it’s been job done as far as the SFA are concerned.
 
The failure to book Stevenson when he basically wrestled Morelos to the ground is laughable. Any referee at any level knows that's a booking, but not in the Scottish Premiership apparently.

Do refs get assessed or get feedback for their performances?
 
Kylegib said:
Morelos scored a perfectly good goal against Kilmarnock and another against Livingston, both these goals would've killed the opposing teams off but both were wrongly ruled out.
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I don’t think anyone will disagree with that. Terrible decisions and they weren’t the only ones.

But us being crap and dropping our standards is also happening, it’s two separate things.
 
thedog said:
He’s spot on. Our inability to kill teams off ultimately will cost us but there is no doubt we get held to a completely different standard.
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We scored 3 goals at the weekend.
We were denied a stone wall penalty.
They should have had a first half red card.

Kilmarnock. Alfie got dragged about their box more than once. He scored a perfectly good goal. They too should have had a man sent off. And set up a goal with their hand.

Is 2 or 3 legitimate goals ahead not killing teams off?
If refs are going to rip the hole out of it, how do you suggest we kill teams off?
 
bristolbear_06 said:
It's spot on but too little too late I fear, I expect us to get a few favourable decisions in the coming weeks and the opposite for them to portray some pretend balance. As many have said the 29th against them should have been the last straw.
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Mark McDougall of the DR called it out a few days after the 29.12 game to be fair. The only one who put himself out there.
 
Sadly this article will be largely ignored or ridiculed due to the journalist who wrote the piece. The Tim's will be spouting their usual bile all over social media like whordes of vermin that they are.
 
An excellent written article. Very satisfying to read robust compare and contrast evidence involving referee's different decision-making in similar incidents made against Rangers but in favour of other clubs and their players.

It restores my faith that I was not becoming neurotic and prejudiced concerning different referrering standards for Rangers versus others. However coming on to FF also helped to keep those feelings somewhat at bay as many were also criticising referrering.

However the evidence based points of a journalist only go so far. One idea could be Rangers 'hiring' an independent, retired referee from outside Scotland to review both Rangers and the other SPL team's games in Scotland and give their judgements on referees and decisions. When I say 'hiring' I mean expenses only for obvious reasons.
 
WatersideTrueBlues said:
He’s hit the nail square on the head there. Numerous dodgy refereeing decisions against us. Not a word said.
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What's he hitting the nail with? a stick of celery?

Just because he has mentioned some, just some of the dodgy decisions doesn't make it a great and factual article.

To do so would be to actually list Clancy's misdemeanours not gloss over them.
 
ID10 said:
Because he has to balance it to stop it becoming a rant

It’s a newspaper article,not a blog or fanzine

If he done what you suggested in last paragraph he would be slaughtered
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So a newspaper article has to be balanced and miss out some important facts? (don't upset the rest of the media)

Who would be slaughtering him for saying what has actually happened? (Lawell?)
 
That's a good article, but only scrapes the surface of the amount of baffling decisions we've had missed or go against us even since the turn of the year.

Can you imagine the outcry if this had all happened to the mhanky mob? Actually we can, we'd end up with another ref strike. Which might not be the worst idea because there's no way they could explain all these "honest mistakes".

The standard of our refs and Scottish football in general is an absolute joke. But then if we can't even afford multi-ball, what f*cking hope have we got?
 
The referees have definitely cost us this season regardless of our form. When we are on song we smash teams regardless of what the ref does. But in the games that have been a close contest or maybe we haven't been firing on all cylinders, they have definitely made the difference between winning and drawing/losing.

Off the top of my head i can think of at least 5 games where the above has been the case. Aberdeen away, Cup final, Killie away, livi at Ibrox and even though we won, the Clancey performance at piggery was the worst of the lot.

Sadly it will only get worse next season if that mob are chasing '10 in a row'. No doubt we have shot ourselves in the foot at times by our own below par performances, but its undeniable that that refs have had a direct impact on our current points tally.
 
It makes me wonder if the SFA has had a secret positive discrimination recruitment policy for officials. The mentally challengeds caused all those problems that led to the strike and were talking of bias to any "journalist" that would listen. God they are still at it even though it clearly favours them now.

They make up about 20% of the population, I wonder what percentage they make up of SFA match officials?
 
Right. We've had bad decisions/lack of decisions from Collum, Clancy, Madden, Robertson, Anderson,Beaton.
Where do we go from here? Us complaining is getting us nowhere.
Either the board agree with us or the referees, which is it?
 
The club has, presumably, a team a video analysts.

Surely there has to be mileage in compiling a video from this season of decisions we feel are questionable, both for and against us and releasing them, saying "Here's where we think we are, let's have a discussion on how we make it better".

Put the onus on others to explain the decisions and work to eradicate the 'mistakes'.
 
It's a start, fair play to him.

Surely in this day and age, the club are keeping video records of the dug shît refereeing we've suffered this season (and more) – how hard would it be to take this to the SFA and ask for improvements.

At the very least I hope this gives Gerrard a bit more licence to talk about the decisions post-match. I understand not wanting to sound like a moaner or be like Lennon, but there's a threshold and surely at some point the damage being done to us via decisions outways the negatives of being known as a moaner.
 
It's a start but I think these decisions will cost us the title.

The momentum that was lost due to game changing decisions such as the non penalty at Pittodrie cant be underestimated.
 
These refs are going to get caught they have already taken the cheating way too far. Cant stop either our enemies demand it in and will expect to see it in the cup ties and the same again next season.

Too obvious, far too many games, an incredible amount of evidence(guy on here that puts the wee videos together should be working at the club) and these games are on live tv. Every single pundit and journo knows about it, ex players, managers of the other teams know play physical get stuck in against Rangers but zero late challenges against the tims as thats a red. If managers and players know the refs are biased towards Celtic then ofcourse it is only natural to suspect there may be cheating in other games between 2 smaller scottish clubs. What about the bookies as well anyone making a few quid betting on the cards ? Plenty for Rangers never any for Celtic.

All these ex refs will know whats happening, our legends Walter, Ally, Gough, Bomber, sure some foreign players watch games on tv, Mols, Amo, Laudrup, everybody knows whats going on out there. None of them will be obssessed or worried the tims views on refs 30 years ago.

Bobby and the guys are cheating one of the most famous british footballers ever out of prizes and a career in management. He might not be saying much at the moment, probably told not too, but im sure he will when he leaves the guy is no coward. He has backroom staff too that wont have seen anything like this in their career.

The refs have made a huge error in thinking that as long as the press is on their side and its Rangers they target then theres no way you get found out. Incredibly reckless just crazy. He cant say what he wants too say but one journo is at least asking a few questions...right dj you next then barry and boyd. There must be more than 1 journo that supports Rangers.

The bbc and radio clyde are now doing sfa/referee propaganda pieces(even more evidence of bias right there) its time for our club to play their game.... do the respectful stuff, the dignity etc, and ask refs, supervisors etc to talk to us educate us about the laws of the game and how difficult the job is. Lets see how comfortable they are when being interviewed by the people they are going out to cheat.
 
Its-Sebo said:
It's a start, fair play to him.

Surely in this day and age, the club are keeping video records of the dug shît refereeing we've suffered this season (and more) – how hard would it be to take this to the SFA and ask for improvements.

At the very least I hope this gives Gerrard a bit more licence to talk about the decisions post-match. I understand not wanting to sound like a moaner or be like Lennon, but there's a threshold and surely at some point the damage being done to us via decisions outways the negatives of being known as a moaner.
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Surely the threshold was passed some time ago though?

It certainly should have been.

For instance, last week at a Rugby Park. Morelos has a perfectly good goal ruled out. Had it stood, I think we’d have held on for the win and as a result we would still have a definite interest in the title race when factoring in our game in hand and two matches against The Beasts still to come.

As it was, the goal was disallowed and Kilmarnock went up the other end of the park and scored the winner.
Result: title race all but over.

When you think that that will mean no access to Champions League money, however remote we may believe that is, then these ‘errors’ are having a huge impact on the club’s stability, standing and financial health.

I get that we we played extremely poorly and that the manager didn’t want to use the referee as an excuse for the performance, but perhaps we need a rethink on that stance?

By complaining, and complaining every time there’s a howler from the officials, win or lose, only then might it start to give them food for thought before blowing against us.

And only then might these ‘honest mistakes’ start to even themselves out over the course of a season.
 
Proud_Ranger said:
Great article. The thing that strikes me after reading it though, is that there are so many other incidents he could have mentioned. The article could have been doubled in length!
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Double the length just discussing Clancy's performance in the old firm game alone. The same referees he criticises are the same refs who will be the officials at this weekends games. If anyone performed so badly at work they'd get sacked. Not refs though. One of the first games at the san giro after the old firm game had Clancy refereeing it. An absolute farce.
 
HandsomeHead said:
Surely the threshold was passed some time ago though?

It certainly should have been.

For instance, last week at a Rugby Park. Morelos has a perfectly good goal ruled out. Had it stood, I think we’d have held in for the win and as a result we would still have a definite interest in the title race when factoring in our game in hand and two matches against The Beasts still to come.

As it was, the goal was disallowed and Kilmarnock went up the other end of the park and scored the winner.
Result: title race all but over.

When you think that that will mean no access to Champions League money, however remote we may believe that is, then these ‘errors’ are having a huge impact on the club’s stability, standing and financial health.

I get that we we played extremely poorly and that the manager didn’t want to use the referee as an excuse for the performance, but perhaps we need a rethink on that stance?

By complaining, and complaining every time there’s a howler from the officials, win or lose, only then might it start to give them food for thought before blowing against us.

And only then might these ‘honest mistakes’ start to even themselves out over the course of a season.
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The threshold was passed a long time ago – the Beaton vs Hibs game. Gerrard obviously has different things to consider, different reasons for doing certain things, so his threshold is different.

I totally agree with you, it's costing us points which is costing the club financially and is also costing Gerrard's managerial career – surely we're at the point that this outweighs his concerns about being perceived as a moaner/sour-grapes merchant or giving the refs a hard time? Complaining every time is what we need to do and I do think it would have an impact, but I also fear it's too late.

I wonder how much of this is down to the Referee summit that Gerrard attended last season about the abuse they get, the difficulty of their job and the effect manager's comments have on their life. It really seemed to have an impact on Gerrard and I think that's playing a part in him keeping quiet now... but it's time to start putting himself before the Referees when they're so blatantly shafting us/him.
 
One big contradiction, good to see someone finally tell the truth re: costly decisions against us BUT, how can you say the refs won't cost us the the title while you're explaining exactly how they are costing us the title?
 
Its-Sebo said:
The threshold was passed a long time ago – the Beaton vs Hibs game. Gerrard obviously has different things to consider, different reasons for doing certain things, so his threshold is different.

I totally agree with you, it's costing us points which is costing the club financially and is also costing Gerrard's managerial career – surely we're at the point that this outweighs his concerns about being perceived as a moaner/sour-grapes merchant or giving the refs a hard time? Complaining every time is what we need to do and I do think it would have an impact, but I also fear it's too late.

I wonder how much of this is down to the Referee summit that Gerrard attended last season about the abuse they get, the difficulty of their job and the effect manager's comments have on their life. It really seemed to have an impact on Gerrard and I think that's playing a part in him keeping quiet now... but it's time to start putting himself before the Referees when they're so blatantly shafting us/him.
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Short answer: the refs don’t pay his wages.

Gerrard is actually duty-bound to highlight inconsistencies. He’s getting paid a huge salary to make us successful, and as you rightly point out, his own legacy will suffer if he doesn’t.

Are Liverpool really going to stake their future on a guy who couldn’t win a thing in the two horse race north of the border?

I guess he could offer up the refereeing bias in his interview, but somehow I doubt they’ll be interested.

If only you’d spoken up at the time, Stevie.

Ah well.
 
HandsomeHead said:
I’d also like to have seen mention of Morelos’s disallowed goal at Rugby Park. Twice in a matter of days that he and we had perfectly good goals incorrectly chalked off.

We need to try and keep this issue in the public forum. Maybe then referees will pause to think before blowing their whistle against us.
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The apparent push that Alfredo was punished for against Kilmarnock, Griffiths push on the lead up to Celtics 1st goal against Aberdeen can someone explain the difference(apart from the obvious)
 
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