Oh Brother, Bobby reprimanded for dropped ball Celtic shocker | OneFootball

In a remarkable chain of events, Scottish referee Bobby Madden has been reprimanded by Crawford Allan because of his dealing with the incident directly after the Jota injury, relating to a dropped ball scenario which took place in the game against Hearts.

In an ironic twist of fate, refereeing decisions seem to on the agenda following Celtic earning a victory over Hearts the other night which kept us in the hunt for the title this season. For some time now, Celtic fans have been asking en-masse for a review of refereeing in this country – owing to some highly dubious officiating coming from our top officials.

(Photo by Ian MacNicol/Getty Images)

Bobby Madden has been notoriously difficult on Celtic FC when refereeing our games and it begs the question why only now is there serious debate about decisions and the implementation of VAR? Could it be we have a lot of people running scared?

The Celtic Star reported earlier this evening that SFA Head of Refereeing, Crawford Allan was on BBC Sportsound and confirmed Madden had been spoken to regarding his officiating on Thursday night. He said to BBC Sportsound: “So it’s not just head knocks, it’s serious injury to a player. Now, you can argue all day long that it wasn’t serious injury to the player to stop the game.

“The fact the player got taken off and replaced, Bobby’s decision at the time was that he was very close to it. I’ve spoken to Bobby on this. He said it was clear the player was in severe pain. It wasn’t just one where a player falls and screams. He said it was clear to him an injury had occurred. He stopped the game because of that — that’s Bobby’s opinion in terms of how he does that, it’s in the laws of the game that a referee can stop the game if, in his opinion, a player is seriously injured. Is a hamstring a serious injury? Debatable.

. (Photo by Ian MacNicol/Getty Images)

“Where I think there’s definitely the error from our point of view, and I’ve chatted to Bobby on this, was the restart. By the time Bobby got the whistle to his mouth, which was only less half a second or so, Hearts then had possession and what should have been done is Hearts should have had the drop ball and been allowed to retain possession. At the time his view was the Celtic player had just stopped playing with it, had gone down and he blew, and Celtic still had it. But having spoken to Bobby it was clear Hearts had it. It should have been a drop ball for Hearts.”

Ridiculous. Simply ridiculous.

Did Mr Allan negate to look at the challenge on Tony Ralston from Barrie McKay on Thursday evening, or going back to Tyncastle the shocker from hammer thrower Andy Halliday which could have severely damaged Callum McGregor?

Scottish football never ceases to amaze, dumbfound, and bemuse all at the same time. If we are so upset about a bounced ball, it begs the question: why are we not concerned with erroneous fouling and penalty claims? I would sure like someone from the SFA to come out and explain the deal of late.

Paul Gillespie

More Stories / Latest

Oh Brother, Bobby reprimanded for dropped ball Celtic shocker

Dec 4 2021, 20:59

Celtic Transfer Latest: Maeda will be joined by two other J-League arrivals

Dec 4 2021, 19:47

Transfer Latest: Daizen Maeda deal in final stages so too, Ideguchi and Hatate

Dec 4 2021, 19:16