A stonewall pen ignored, a red card that never came, & the ‘Rangers’ snatch it at the death – while Celtic have had 3 good goals chalked off in 2 games. And we play them twice in 9 days…
I'm feeling very cagey about the next two weekends thanks to our amazing, unbiased, professional referees, how about you?
Eric Knott 
PERTH, SCOTLAND - SEPTEMBER 09: Celtic's Haissem Hassan scores but the goal is ruled out after a VAR check for the ball being out of play in the build up during a William Hill Premiership match between St Johnstone and Celtic at McDiarmid Park, on September 09, 2026, in Perth, Scotland. (Photo by Ross MacDonald/SNS Group via Getty Images)
Last night at Ibrox, the officials had two big calls to make.
They got both of them wrong.
Both of them, as you’d expect by now, fell in exactly the same direction.
St Mirren should have had a penalty kick inside the first ten minutes.
Dujon Sterling should have been walking down the tunnel long before the end.
Neither happened, and the Ibrox side went and won it in injury time through Bojan Miovski.
Funny how these things work out, isn’t it?
Now, before anybody tells me this is just a Celtic fan greeting about somebody else’s game, let me point you at the man who said it first.
Andy Halliday.
A former Ibrox player, sat in the Sportscene studio, calling it exactly as he saw it.
Here is what he had to say, as carried by the Daily Record. Read it twice, because this is a man with no dog in our fight:
“Undoubtedly, for me. Dujon Sterling drops his runner and Kabia gets in the blind side of him. I think you can forgive a referee for not seeing this live, because there wasn’t much of an appeal when it came to the St Mirren players.
“But when you see the replays, there is no doubt in my mind that it’s not Kabia who initiates contact here, it’s Fernandez. You can see that little buckle of the ankle to suggest where the contact comes.
“I forgive referees for not getting that in live scenarios but VAR has got to pick those scenarios up. For me, I think St Mirren should have had a penalty kick in that instance.”
When a man who wore that jersey tells you the VAR has bottled it, believe him
And I’ll give Halliday his due here, because he’s right about the live decision.
Don Robertson had no real appeal to go on in the moment.
Ismeal Kabia went in behind, Emmanuel Fernandez took his standing leg, and the St Mirren players barely raised a hand.
But that is precisely what the pitchside monitor was invented for in the first place.
Steven McLean was sat in Clydesdale House with every angle available to him, and he decided the man in the middle didn’t need to see it.
Unforgivable is the word the Record used.
I’d go with something stronger, but we’ll leave it there.
And who exactly is going to be asked about it this morning?
Nobody, that’s who.
Why is this not a penalty? pic.twitter.com/VICyzGioo3
— Patrick S Murphy (@PatrickSMurphy4) September 9, 2026
Forty eight thousand views and climbing, and not one of those people is struggling to work out what they are looking at.
Then you have Sterling as the last man, hauling the boy down, and Robertson reaching for a yellow
This is the one that should be getting far more attention than it is.
Fernandez, out of position and under no pressure whatsoever, gives the ball away in his own half.
Nikolas Agrafiotis picks it up and is away, clean through and running at the goal.
Sterling, as the last man, grabs him and pulls him to the deck.
That is a red card in any league on the planet, and it isn’t remotely close.
Robertson booked him.
A yellow card, for hauling down the last man with the goal at his mercy?
After a slack pass from Emanuel Fernandez who was out of position, Dujon Sterling as last man pulled down St Mirren's Nikolas Agrafiotis who was running through towards goal to get shot off. Ref Don Robertson gave Sterling yellow card – Sterling very lucky not to get red card pic.twitter.com/ov52QTHGuI
— The Global Tablet of Jurisprudence (@gtj1247) September 9, 2026
A hundred and forty six thousand views on that one.
And that’s before we get anywhere near what Nico Raskin did to Kabia on the edge of his own box.
Have a look at this one, and then tell me the referee had a good night:
General standard of refereeing in favour of Rangers shocking. St Mirren's Kabia skinned Nico Raskin on box edge – dangerous – was gonnae shoot, cross or slip forward in. Rakin from behind grabbed 2 arms, studded his Achilles, & kneed his bum. No booking for Raskin- unbelievable! pic.twitter.com/1CZUPmCCZ9
— The Global Tablet of Jurisprudence (@gtj1247) September 9, 2026
Two arms grabbed from behind, a studded Achilles, and a knee in the back.
No booking.
So let’s total up what actually happened at Ibrox last night.
A penalty not given, a red card not shown, and a booking not issued.
Three calls, all of them going the one way, in a game the home side won with the very last kick.
Take any one of those three away and we are looking at a completely different scoreline this morning.
And here is where it gets uncomfortable, because the exact opposite keeps happening to Celtic
Three perfectly good Celtic goals, chalked off across our last two fixtures.
Every single one of them examined, re-examined, frozen, zoomed and picked apart until some official found himself a reason to rub it out.
That is the pattern, and it isn’t a subtle one.
Or are we all just imagining it?
When the decision would hurt Celtic, the microscope comes out and the lines get drawn.
When the decision would hurt the Ibrox side, the monitor is suddenly nowhere to be found.
Now, I know exactly what the SMSM will tell you today.
They’ll tell you these are isolated incidents.
They’ll tell you it evens itself out over a season.
When has it ever evened itself out for us?
We all know it doesn’t, and we all know it never has.
We go to Ibrox on Sunday, and meet them again the Sunday after, with these same officials
That is the bit that should be keeping you up tonight.
A Premier Sports Cup quarter final at Ibrox this weekend.
A league meeting between the pair of them seven days after that one.
Two derbies, nine days, and a refereeing culture that has just shown us all precisely where its instincts lie.
Does anybody honestly fancy our chances of getting the 50/50 call at Ibrox on Sunday?
Make no mistake, the difference between winning and losing either of those games could be one decision.
One penalty kick either given or quietly waved away.
One red card either shown or slipped back into the pocket.
And on the evidence of the last fortnight, you already know which way that call is landing.
We are more than capable of beating the Ibrox side twice inside nine days.
We just might have to beat the officials as well.
DO YOUR JOB, CLYDESDALE HOUSE.
Same as it ever was…
Key Takeaways
- The officials at Ibrox made two crucial wrong calls during the match: a penalty should have been given to St Mirren, and Dujon Sterling should have received a red card.
- Decision-making appears biased, with crucial calls consistently favouring the home side, as highlighted by Andy Halliday.
- Celtic faced three valid goals disallowed recently, contrasting sharply with leniency shown towards the Ibrox side.
- Upcoming matches at Ibrox raise concerns about the consistency of officiating, with the potential for critical decisions to impact the outcome.
- The article calls for accountability from Clydesdale House regarding refereeing standards and decisions made during matches.
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The driver of the year big Dujon Sterling was being praised and backslapped and high fived by the scoops of the SMSM pre St Mirren game . Alright big man and how’s the family kind of welcoming ! Considering he drove his motor while being blitzed drunk crashing into a pedestrian crossing and leaving his write off motor in an upright position for the driving offence at 1 in the morning after an all night bender is a disgrace ! Yet he was being welcomed by the media like a long lost son who completely ignored his shocking actions a few short months ago . How quickly people forget ….when there is a certain clumpany involved of course !
Let me see if I am understanding this correctly ? In Scottish football we know the referees and assistants are near the bottom of the barrel …talent wise ! The proof being that not one was deemed good enough by FIFA to be selected for the WC pool of match officials . And those picked for the WC matches were diabolically rank rotten…go figure ! So then they introduced VAR poodles here to rectify mistakes made by said referees every game as our governing bodies know their referee guys are not up to the job ….a security blanket type of thing from the equally pathetically bad SFA ! But then the problems intensify as who rectifies VAR mistakes and errors and incorrect decisions by them ? Mistakes which again are happening every single game in wee Scotland ! Mistakes which are sucking the life out of the game here ..in plain sight ! And the merry go round continues on and on and on and on and on and on…! God help us all ……
Twice in 8 days.
The same Steven McLean is on VAR duty on Sat with Andrew Dallas son of Hugh . The Ref who gave Rangers 4 pens in one game and we all know why his dad was sacked by the SFA . Does anyone think VAR will be applied neutrally on Sunday ? I don’t !