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Celtic chairman Peter Lawwell and chief executive Michael Nicholson made some comments about refereeing in Scotland at the club’s Annual General Meeting, prompting laughter in the room.
But the club’s war with the authorities, which led to an unprecedented referees’ strike thirteen years ago this weekend, is no laughing matter as it nearly paralyzed the elite amid a bitter dispute. Lawwell joked that the last time their rivals Rangers conceded a penalty in the handball league was through Ibrox legend of the 1960s and 1970s, John Greig, a reference to the fact that the Ibrox side have played 67 games since being awarded a penalty in the Scottish Premiership.
And Nicholson earned the biggest ovation of the afternoon for walking away with a sarcastic rejoinder. He was asked “what happens if a referee and VAR fail a key decision?”To which the general manager replied: “Rangers penalty. “A lot of laughter, but it wasn’t in 2010. Here, Record Sport looks back at what happened on the 13th anniversary of the infamous Scottish football referees’ strike.
Essentially, Scottish referees voted to strike on the weekend of 27 November 2010 in reaction to growing complaints (Willie Callum had received death threats) and scrutiny which they felt threatened their safety. The vote took place at an assembly of Scotland’s top 31 parties. -officials of the year. Such a drastic measure was not on the agenda, but the strength of feeling among civil servants at the time meant that taking time off work over a weekend was their preferred option.
A month earlier, the Parkhead team had gone to war with the SFA after a highly debatable decision. Whistler Dougie McDonald awarded Celtic a penalty in an attack against Dundee United at Tannadice just to replace his mind, after consulting with his assistant Steven Craven. that’s what he told Celtic boss Neil Lennon and referee observer (Jim McBurnie) at the time.
However, in an episode titled Dougiegate, this was proven to be a lie and Craven resigned and former Celtic chairman John Reid asked McDonald to do the same, which he later did.
No, others intervened at the time of the storm. Hearts, then under the leadership of Vladimir Romanov, issued a statement suggesting that the low refereeing criteria “can gently serve as a canopy for prejudice and match-fixing”. “There is a double standard: all clubs deserve to be treated equally, not just those that dominate the game,” said director Sergejus Fedotovas in reference to the McDonald incident. “I don’t remember any other scenario in which the referees would have been warned so strictly when he arrived at another club outside the former company. “
The SFA began contacting other associations to request replacement referees, but foreign officials did not need to give the impression of breaking a strike. Referees from the Netherlands, Iceland, Norway, Ireland, Sweden and Wales, among others, refused.
Referees were recruited from Malta, Israel, Poland, Portugal and Luxembourg, and foreign officials were appointed, at a cost of around £40,000, but they only had enough for 11 of the 20 scheduled fits in Scottish football to take up positions this weekend. This was the first time since 1905 that a Scottish national match had been refereed by someone from Scotland.
Well, not really. Israeli whistleblower Eli Hacmon, who criticised Kilmarnock against Aberdeen, insisted he would not have taken the holiday if he had known the reasons for recruiting foreign officials. He said, “I’m not satisfied with the reasons we got here. “here. We didn’t know the explanation until we arrived on Friday. “If we had known that earlier, we wouldn’t have come here. We love our friends and them. When the FA told us about the situation, they said it was political, and nothing more: if it were political, everything would be fine. But if they don’t do it with our colleagues, it’s different.