The SMSM just can’t let it lie when it comes to the Celtic goal that should have been ‘disallowed’. Just ’cause Bobby Madden says so…

Well, well, well…

Three days on from Tannadice, and they still can’t let it lie.

Celtic won 4-0 on Saturday night.

Four goals.

A quarter final against the Ibrox side booked, a manager smiling, a support driving home happy.

And here we are on Monday, with the Stenography Corps still hunched over one frame of one goal like a man looking for a contact lens in a car park.

The latest recruit to Operation Arse Covering is Bobby Madden.

Former Premiership whistler, former English FA whistler, current Instagram content creator, and now, apparently, the last word on UEFA jurisprudence.

He has decided that Camilo Duran’s goal should have been chalked off.

And the Daily Record, bless them, have printed every syllable of it.

“A much discussed decision at Tannadice yesterday was Celtic’s second goal. Ball contact on the arm of a teammate of the goalscorer.

“I’d like to point you in the direction of a fantastic new platform released by UEFA just six days ago called Player Online…

“It says that any handball that’s missed in the buildup should be identified by VAR and the goal disallowed. The rationale says a goal attained after a handball cannot stand.”

Right.

Let me get this straight.

Under the Laws of the Game as they actually exist, Camilo Duran’s goal is a goal.

Not a controversial goal.

Not a lucky goal.

A goal.

Law 12 says it is an offence if a player scores in the opponents’ goal directly from their hand or arm, even accidentally.

It also says it is an offence if a player scores immediately after the ball has touched their hand or arm, even accidentally.

Their hand.

Their arm.

The scorer’s.

Not a teammate’s, somewhere back up the pitch, on a different day, in a different postcode.

That old rule, the one that used to punish a scorer for a teammate’s accidental handball earlier in the move, was binned from the Laws years back, because it was making a mockery of the game and everybody knew it.

Kasper Hogh had an effort blocked.

The ball brushed Hogh’s arm.

Camilo Duran, whose arms were doing absolutely nothing of interest to anybody, stuck it in the net from close range.

Steven McLean was told the goal stands, because under the Laws of the Game the goal stands.

That isn’t a scandal.

That’s a Monday.

UEFA’s Player Online platform governs UEFA competitions, and the Premier Sports Cup is not a UEFA competition.

Have a look at the two examples Madden wheels out as his killer evidence.

Switzerland against Spain.

Inter Milan against Liverpool in the Champions League.

UEFA.

And UEFA.

Two UEFA competitions, refereed under UEFA’s own competition guidelines, held up as proof that a Premier Sports Cup tie at Tannadice was officiated incorrectly.

I’m no lawyer, but I’d suggest that’s a bit like getting done for speeding in Glasgow and being shown the limit on a road in Zurich.

Different jurisdiction entirely.

His third example is the only Scottish one, Falkirk being denied an equaliser against St Mirren on the opening weekend.

And here’s the thing about that one.

If that decision was wrong, then the victim of it is Falkirk.

Not Bobby Madden’s engagement figures.

Three of the four went the way he wanted, and the one that didn’t just happens to be ours.

Read his own closing line back again.

“The challenge is understanding why there are four instances here where the VAR has only intervened in three cases.”

Three out of four, then.

Seventy five per cent of the outcomes went exactly the way he is arguing for.

And the twenty five per cent that didn’t?

Celtic.

Convenient, isn’t it??

Anybody fancy placing a bet that if Duran had been in a blue shirt on Saturday, Player Online would still be sitting there unopened six days after release?

Because I’ve been reading this stuff for thirty years, and I don’t recall a single fantastic new platform being discovered on a Monday morning after the Ibrox side benefitted from a decision.

Not one.

Willie Collum backed the call the same day, in writing, and that still isn’t good enough for them.

This is the part that gets me.

Willie Collum is the SFA’s head of referees.

Not a podcaster.

Not a pundit.

The head of refereeing in this country, who came out within hours of the full time whistle at Tannadice and confirmed the incident did not merit a foul against Celtic.

Case closed, you would think.

Apparently not.

Because when the governing body backs a call that favours Celtic, the governing body suddenly isn’t the authority any more, and a man on Instagram is.

Jim Goodwin was ‘perplexed’.

Jim Goodwin was also four goals down.

If I’d just watched my team ship four at home I’d be perplexed about a lot of things, and the ball grazing a striker’s elbow would be somewhere around fifteenth on my list.

The one thing I will grant them is that the inconsistency is real, it just isn’t a conspiracy.

Let’s be honest here.

Scottish VAR is a shambles, and it has been a shambles since the day it arrived.

Falkirk probably were hard done by.

There will be a Saturday this season when the exact same law is applied the exact same way and Celtic are the ones raging about it, and I’ll be sitting here typing that too.

That’s inconsistency.

That’s poorly trained officials working off guidelines they don’t fully understand.

What it isn’t, is a plot.

No unseen Fenian hand at Clydesdale House.

Just a group of men getting one right for once, and an entire industry that cannot cope with it.

The bottom line is this.

Celtic scored four times on Saturday, and the only goal anybody in the SMSM wants to talk about is the one they can build a grievance around before a quarter final with the Ibrox side.

Make no mistake, that’s not an accident either.

Mark my words, we’ll hear about this goal again in the build up to that tie, and again after it if the result goes the wrong way for them.

They always do.

You know it, and I know it.

Don’t you?

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