COLIN KAZIM-RICHARDS was fortunate to escape a red card against Motherwell which could have ruled him out the Old Firm Scottish Cup semi-final, according to the player the Celtic man clashed with at Fir Park.
The former Feyenoord striker squared up to Kieran Kennedy late in the game and appeared to push the defender's face with his hand.
No further action was taken at the time, Ronny Deila substituted Kazim-Richards soon afterwards, and referee Willie Collum did speak to the players which probably means there will be no retrospective decision even if the officials missed the incident.
"I think if the ref had seen it he would probably have been sent off," said Kennedy. "It didn’t bother me. It happens in football. There are tussles and heated games.
“But I think if the ref saw that he clearly grabbed me around the neck. I raised my hands as well. It’s one of them. I saw him push one of the lads, so I came in and everyone was pumped up for the game and going for it.
“The referee said to us; 'Anymore of that and you’re off.' I was thinking 'I haven’t put my hands around his throat'. He clearly didn’t see it because, if he did, he is off.
“It has to be questioned why the linesman hasn’t seen it either.”
Celtic's 2-1 win did not mean Motherwell slipped out of the top six because Saturday's results went for Mark McGhree and his team.
A mistake by the otherwise excellent Motherwell goalkeeper Connor Ripley led to a second goal for Leigh Griffiths and Kennedy felt his team didn't get any luck at all.
He said: "We were gutted to lose. We wanted to confirm our top-six place on our own with a win or a draw.
“We had a look at the goals and you can’t blame Connor Ripley for the winner because he had been the best player on the pitch throughout the whole game.
“But the offside which was given against Scott McDonald (at 1-0 to Celtic), we didn’t think it was and he was not in a position to call it.
“That’s what they get paid for, to give those tough decisions. If you look in the last six months, we’ve not really been getting decisions.
“There was a penalty incident which cost us three points, this one, it’s been week-in, week-out where little things haven’t gone our way. We’ve been on a good run and doing well recently and we’ve stayed in the top six."
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereLast Updated:
Report this comment Cancel