Ex-SFA referee slams John Beaton decision in Rangers draw v Aberdeen
Former SFA referee Steve Conroy has slammed John Beaton’s decision to award Rangers a penalty against Aberdeen on Wednesday.
James Tavernier’s 81st-minute goal from the spot earned the Gers a 2-2 draw against the Dons after Fashion Sakala was supposedly fouled by David Bates in the box.
Chris Sutton dubbed it the “worst” penalty decision he’s seen and while Conroy doesn’t agree with that notion, the ex-whistler does feel Beaton got it wrong.
“I wouldn’t go as far as Chris Sutton but I have to say that I’ve seen it and I don’t know what the foul was,” Conroy said, as quoted by the Daily Record.
“I can’t see any foul at all so in my mind it wasn’t a penalty. From where John was it must have looked like David Bates knocked Fashion Sakala off his stride when he was going for the header.
“The defender might have been wrong side but he has to be somewhere. It’s not as if he can disappear so he’s going to be somewhere.
“But he certainly didn’t impede the Rangers player. John wouldn’t have guessed – he will have called it the way he saw it and from his position he would have assumed the Aberdeen player knocked the Rangers player off his stride.
“And because David Bates was on the wrong side, John has just misinterpreted what happened.
“That was the only thing I could see from John’s angle but there wasn’t a foul. It’s as simple as that. So it wasn’t a penalty.”
We got lucky
While some fans will point at that challenge and say, ‘look, he’s holding his shirt there’, or, ‘look, he’s impeding Sakala’s movement there’, we have to admit it was soft.
If that was the other way around or if Celtic were awarded a similar penalty, our fans would be furious.
We got lucky. Let’s just hold our hands up and admit it.
But we’re not buying into this nonsense that we get awarded loads of penalties and that there’s some kind of conspiracy, which is what those on the other side seem to suggest.
Rangers are the best team in the league.
Last season, we won the Premiership title without suffering a defeat and right now, Steven Gerrard’s side is top of the table.
If we’re the best team in the league then we’re going to be spending more time in and around the penalty box than other clubs and also have more skilful players who draw fouls.
It’s not rocket science to work that out. Although those on the other half of the Old Firm divide have their expertise in accounting.
In other Rangers news, Michael Stewart’s tweet suggests he may have been dropped by BBC Scotland.