Celtic ‘favourite’ John Beaton loses the plot at Pittodrie, issuing 3 red cards as John McGinn labels ‘Scottish VAR a mess’

Since all of the Ibrox cheerleaders are saying the referees are on our side when it comes “until Celtic score time added on”, I guess John Beaton must be one of our favourite referees?

Yeah, right.

Amid a controversy filled night at Pittodrie, Beaton sent 3 players off in a bad tempered Scottish Cup 5th round game.

Motherwell were down to ten men after just 2 minutes of the first half.

Oscar Priestman made what appeared to be no more than a clumsy challenge on on-loan Ibrox player Lyall Cameron on the edge of the box and Beaton went for the red card immediately.

Looking at the replays, it seemed pretty harsh.

But then again, as we know ourselves, Beaton has never been the most “competent” of referees over the years.

As a contest, the game was badly unbalanced very early on.

Kevin Nisbet scored from the ensuing free kick, and Aberdeen were a goal up within four minutes.

It was always going to be an uphill battle for Motherwell thereafter.

20 minutes later, Denis Geiger of Aberdeen was deservedly sent off for a high studs tackle on Motherwell’s Lukas Fadinger.

But it was the VAR controversy which resulted in Motherwell’s Liam Gordon being sent off that drew the attention of former Celtic target and Aston Villa midfielder, John McGinn.

McGinn would have an interest in the game as his brother Paul is the Motherwell captain.

Beaton first issued a yellow for Gordon’s tackle on Toyosi Olusanya.

But was then called to the monitor again, and upgraded it to a red.

This was where John McGinn stated VAR in Scotland is a mess, as reported in the Sun:

He wrote: “Scottish VAR is a mess.”

Moments later, he added a sarcastic swipe at the camera angle shown during the Gordon review.

He laughed: “I’ve sent you to the screen, let’s send you to an angle from the North Sea to back it up.”

The remark referenced the distant replay used by officials during the pitchside check.

Its not a good look for Scottish football when you have an EPL player criticising the VAR system the SFA uses.

For a long time, we have known that it’s a substandard set up in comparison to the EPL’s VAR.

Which in it’s own right still causes controversy.

All this does is serve to highlight the poor standard of Scottish refereeing, which is very much in the spotlight once again this season.

John Beaton himself is never too far away from controversy, especially since his allegiances are well known.

With another crucial weekend coming up in the Scottish Premiership title race, we learned the other day that Ibrox favourite, David Dickinson has once again been selected to officiate for his favourite team.

Dickinson will be in the VAR room for the Livingston game.

This will be Dickinson’s 5th involvement in games involving his favourite side since last December.

The on-field referee will be Ryan Lee, who made plenty of controversial decisions in our game against Kilmarnock at the weekend.

It’ll be interesting to see how that one pans out, and whether Dickinson will be able to influence it in favour of his beloved Ibrox side.

Andrew Dallas will be the VAR for the game at Tynecastle on Saturday.

It promises to be another interesting weekend in the title race, but it will also be interesting to see how the Ibrox facing officials influence it.

Controversy is never far too away when they’re involved.

I have no doubt that Dickinson will have some say in how things pan out at Almondvale.

As for ourselves, we have a relatively okay refereeing team for our game against Hibs.

Matthew McDermid will be the on-field referee, with Grant Irvine on VAR.

For tonight’s game against Stuttgart at Celtic Park, it will be a pleasure to be refereed by professional referees.

Who have no interest in either side.

Maybe our Scottish referees might learn a thing or two from them?