Graham Spiers speaks out as 'bold' Rangers allegation made by BBC Scotland presenter
The Times journalist Graham Spiers has called out Richard Gordon for his views surrounding supposedly biased referees favouring Rangers in the Scottish Premiership.
The BBC presenter accused Scottish referees of handing the Gers favourable decisions in their own penalty area, following the recent discovery that the side has gone 68 matches without conceding a penalty.
Stunned by the opinion, Spiers took to Twitter to voice his concern with Gordon's article (2 December).
"This is bold from Richard Gordon, a BBC Sportsound presenter: Scottish referees are biased towards Rangers," Spiers wrote on Twitter on Friday (8 December). "Does he say this quite so brazenly on air?"
Keep it to yourself
This is quite the accusation from a BBC journalist. While the statistic is an outstanding fact, questioning the integrity of refereeing in the whole of Scotland is poor form from a news outlet that is supposed to be neutral.
At the other end of the pitch, it seems that the number of penalties given for Rangers are on par with Celtic, 26 to 23 since the start of the 2021/22 season. However, in the same period, the Gers have only conceded three penalties, while Celtic are at 10 and Aberdeen at 23.
While some people may point fingers towards the state of refereeing and bias, the key reason could just be that Rangers are more careful inside the penalty area. They have also conceded the fewest number of goals in the division.
Is there a correlation between good defending and fewer penalties awarded against them? Yes, most likely. But fans of rival teams need some other reason as to why their players are not as good.
As a journalist for the BBC, choosing to accuse the referees is shocking.