THANK God common sense has prevailed over the Josh Meekings affair.
That is all I can say. Of course referee Steven McLean got it horribly wrong when he and Alan Muir decided the Inverness defender used his face rather than his hand to stop Leigh Griffiths' goalbound header in Sunday's Scottish Cup semi-final. But since then, people have lost all sense of perspective and grip on the reality of the situation. All hell has broken loose. It is always the same in Scotland. Politics, conspiracy theories, it all gets thrown into the mix.
You've got to be honest. No decision has made a bigger impact, because Celtic would have gone on to win the match by three or four goals, if Inverness go down to ten and Celtic score the penalty. It is the curse of the treble again, Celtic still can't manage to win it, and that was something Ronny Deila badly wanted on his cv. So the decision had a huge bearing on things but it has turned into a farce.
Celtic made an official complaint to the SFA, citing the "level of reaction from our supporters and across football" but we at Ross County would have dealt with it differently. I have played for an Old Firm club but I have also played for what people would call wee clubs like Dundee, St Johnstone and Dundee United. When I was there I felt Rangers and Celtic got all the decisions.
If I was on the wrong end of such a ridiculous piece of refereeing with so much riding on it I would simply do what we have done a couple of times this season already: phone John Fleming, the SFA's head of refereeing. For instance, we had three goals chalked off that were all onside in a match against St Mirren in October. For one of them, Michael Gardyne was fully two yards onside. So we had been hard done to, the referee and linesman got it horribly wrong, and we just said to John 'look, that is not good enough'. It was a professional, business-like call. Myself and Jim McIntyre went on loudspeaker with him, said we had watched the video analysis of it, and would send him the clips. He had a referee's meeting and tried to get to the bottom of it. The linesman in question was embarrassed, told to up his standards. They took it on board. I know for a fact John Fleming tries to rectify these situations, and pulls referees up for poor performances. What else can you do about it?
All of that is embarrassing enough for the referees without compliance officer Tony McGlennan getting involved in it, and issuing a notice of complaint. That just opens another can of worms. So what happens next? Every handball decision, whether or not it is deliberate, gets banned from the next game? That for me just isn't football reality, and shows a lack of understanding of the game. I am sure Mr McGlennan is a very good lawyer but if this week has proven anything, it is the fact that every day common law and the laws of football is completely different.
The definition of 'deliberate' is the main problem in all this, not to mention whether an official 'sees' an incident or not. Clearly none of the officials saw it conclusively, or they would have awarded the penalty. And you can't tell me that Josh Meekings actually meant to handle that ball. If you deliberately mean it, you shove your hand out and save it, like Luis Suarez or Diego Maradona.
Yes, his hand was in an unnatural position in relation to the laws of football, but is it a natural position when you throw in the fact that he is half trying to protect himself and he doesn't have a clue where the ball is going to end up. I think the compliance officer made a fool of himself and then the judicial panel effectively decided to backtrack again because of all the furore. Scottish football has struck again.
If you go back to basics it all comes back to a poor refereeing decision so let the head of referees deal with his referees and try to make them better. We had Stevie McLean recently against Dundee United, we won 2-1 but I wasn't happy about his performance. I told him that afterwards, we spoke about it reasonably calmly, even if there were a few harsh words, but I am not going to write to the SFA about it.
There have been calls to introduce video technology, but I think we have to be careful. Outwith the penalty box you can't stop play to start looking at every single incident. Sometimes I think decisions and talking points are part of the game and we would miss them if they are gone.
But what we can do straight away is introduce goalline technology. I know it is down to finance and you wouldn't be able to bring it in at every ground but let's start at least using it at the big games. I would also start thinking about using it to determine what is a penalty and what isn't a penalty. Fifa president Sepp Blatter seems to think consulting video footage undermines the referees but it is hard to see how Stevie McLean could be more embarrassed than he is right now.
While I am happy for Josh Meekings that he is able to play in the final, I feel for Gary Warren, who misses out due to two bookings. If you play in the semi-final the only way you should miss out is for violent conduct or serious foul play. That is another rule they will have to look at soon.
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