…..or not as the case may be, when it came to Rangers manager Walter Smith escaping any punishment from the SFA whatsoever over his comments about assistant referee Tom Murphy.
Smith as good as called Murphy a cheat after his side’s recent 0-0 draw at Motherwell, and although he may well have a point in that respect as far as Murphy’s alleged Celtic links are concerned, precedents have been set with managers of other clubs doing the same, and the SFA have bottled it here when it’s come to imposing a similar punishment upon one of their former employees.
I wonder what will happen the next time that the likes of Craig Levein or even Csaba Laszlo decide to openly criticise a referee. Will it be the usual £5000-£10000 fine that Levein in particular makes a habit of picking up? Or will the SFA be equally lenient when it comes to these guys in the face of letting Smith off with a ‘crime’ that others have been punished for? They really do not make life easy for themselves do they?
Is it really any wonder that the biggest problem with our match officials is inconsistency when we have this lot in charge of them? ‘Amateurish’ doesn’t even begin to describe it…..
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The Scottish Executive should commision a corruption enquiry into the SFA, carried out by people not either born or brought up in Scotland. This decision is about as surprising as the sun rising tomorrow, and that’s sad.
I really do feel that the time is long overdue for the football authorities in Scotland to be subject to some kind of external scrutiny and to have compulsory guidelines imposed on them to ensure transparency of all their actions and processes. As a long standing Hearts fan and follower of football here it seems clear to me that institutionalised bias towards Rangers and Celtic is real and not the paranoia that many would want us to believe. It is strangling the life out of the game in Scotland. Surely sport thrives on the unexpected, routing for the underdog, the ?romance? (as they say) of the cup competitions etc. Little or none of this for us in Scotland I?m afraid. Although it?s been going on for years and years (its not so long ago in my memory that Rangers and Celtic seemed to be drawn together in every cup final ? one can only imagine that the mathematicians amongst us might have some thoughts on the law of probability here) perhaps surprisingly it?s only really in the last few seasons that we are beginning to see a groundswell of opinion amongst the non-Glasgow fans that the problem is real and something should be done about it. It is possibly the internet (i.e. sites like this) that has more than anything provided the platform for the ordinary fan to bring there observations to the fore. Certainly we cannot rely on the Scottish press in this regard and yet to my mind exposing corruption (in any walk of life) should be one of their fundamental responsibilities. Why those with any influence on the game should be so obsessed with ensuring that that status quo remains is anybody?s guess but, without proof anything more sinister, I suspect that money is the root cause. Whatever the true situation is it is surely time to get Scottish Football?s house in order ? this would be better for everyone including the SFA and, although initially a painful process where they are forced to come to terms with the concept of a level playing field in domestic competition, for Rangers and Celtic.
Fantastic rant, imdc – worthy of an article in its own right!
Hmmmm… “on the basis of documentary evidence provided, and clarification offered, we find that Walter Smith has no case to answer.” So… did the SFA committee agree with Walter that Murphy made bad decisions that went Celtic’s way ? Or did Walter documentary evidence go something like – “It was just a heat-of -the-moment comment …. I had lost sight of the fact that Rangers also get lots of wrong decisions in our favour too, so it was grossly unfair of me to single Mr Murphy out. If you give us a penalty next game, I promise not to do it again.”