Do Rangers get a "free pass" from referees?

[Ric]

We saw it the other night, with Roofe, and we saw it a few games ago with Morelos. However, for many, this is not a new phenomenon and has been prevalent for decades. In the "before times" there was much chat about the influence of a crowd, would a referee "risk" red carding an obvious malicious challenge if it meant 50,000+ fans all baying for their blood? We've had over half a season to determine if that was a correct assumption or not. Clearly video replay, and VAR should it ever be fully introduced into the Scottish leagues, makes retrospective action all the easier but I ask you this simple question now..

Do Rangers get a "free pass" from the refereeing fraternity, and if so, why?

 

Edited February 4, 2021 by Ric

[ewan14]

Yes

[DMCs]

Hahaha what a riddy of a thread

[AJF]

[Ric]

6 minutes ago, DMCs said:

Hahaha what a riddy of a thread

Taking the classic unionist line of "people shouldn't be allowed a vote"?

[G51]

People who believe in refereeing conspiracies are... let's be charitable and call them daft.

[Busta Nut]

This thread does apply to Celtic too, Yes & they are bad at their job with a sprinkle of being feart that Celtic or Rangers will criticise them.

[craigkillie]

The worst part of this thread is the use of "Does Rangers..." rather than "Do Rangers...".

[Ric]

10 minutes ago, CCB19035 said:

It's the way Scottish football is. For me, it's not some widespread conspiracy, rather it's totally weak refereeing. You have these two huge fish in a smaller pond, with supporters up and down the country, and any decision a referee makes to the detriment of either side of the divide will be labelled as a supporter of either of, and the media will go into overdrive. f**k me, folk even obsess over the fact Collum was a Catholic school teacher, or that Bobby Madden frequented a specific pub. 

I'd say there is a fair bit to that.

As I've not given a reply and as it's my thread I probably should, I think they do give them a bit of a free pass, but it's not based on any mass conspiracy, I think it's down to (as you say) certain dynamics. I also feel there is a slight bias within officials, but it's more about the size of team and reputed "quality" of the player, rather than an implicit bias towards a specific team. If an OF player goes down in the box, you feel the referee will (more times than not) assume that there was a challenge because that player is good enough to have made an effort on goal. If some provincial player drops to the turf then the assumption is they were clearly looking for it.

So a mix of bad officiating, and a small part personal bias albeit not team specific.

I should say that I don't think referees are inherently bad in this country, I think the speed and technical nature of the sport has increased considerably over the decades and external scrutiny of the game is far more, resulting in every aspect being evaluated in more detail than a referee can do on the spot.

 

4 minutes ago, craigkillie said:

The worst part of this thread is the use of "Does Rangers..." rather than "Do Rangers...".

You are entirely correct, and I should be ashamed of my grammar, even though the caveat is I'm just out of my bed and having my first coffee of the day it is no excuse.

Edited February 4, 2021 by Ric

[Leith Green]

IIRC, the vast majority of the referees are from a couple of the associations, Glasgow and the west of Scotland.  Until that is rectified those who think there is an issue will continue to thrive with the "unconscious bias" argument.

 

One area I think needs looked at is the retro reds punishment - against us, the Morelos one was the stickiest of stick on reds anyone could have seen. For reasons only known to himself, the ref ignored it, Morelos scored a perfectly good goal and Rangers won the match.

Its entirely conceivable that Rangers would have won anyway, but any retrospective "punishment" is of no use to Hibs (or anyone else in that situation).

A few days post match and they accept the 3 match ban for him - this does not help Hibs, indeed if he misses matches v those teams immediately round us it could be a seen as detrimental.

Edited February 4, 2021 by Leith Green

[DMCs]

19 minutes ago, Ric said:

Taking the classic unionist line of "people shouldn't be allowed a vote"?

Now we know that the imminent arrival of 55 isn't just causing Celtic fans around the country a lot of pain. For some weird reason it's got St Mirren fans worked up too.

Edited February 4, 2021 by DMCs

[Ric]

5 minutes ago, DMCs said:

Now we know that the imminent arrival of 55 isn't just causing Celtic fans around the country a lot of pain. For some weird reason it's got St Mirren fans worked up too.

The only person worked up is you complaining about a topic on a football forum. You'd think with an ample lead and a "free pass" from the referees you'd be happy to let everything slide by. Clearly not.

[G51]

7 minutes ago, Ric said:

I'd say there is a fair bit to that.

As I've not given a reply and as it's my thread I probably should, I think they do give them a bit of a free pass, but it's not based on any mass conspiracy, I think it's down to (as you say) certain dynamics. I also feel there is a slight bias within officials, but it's more about the size of team and reputed "quality" of the player, rather than an implicit bias towards a specific team. If an OF player goes down in the box, you feel the referee will (more times than not) assume that there was a challenge because that player is good enough to have made an effort on goal. If some provincial player drops to the turf then the assumption is they were clearly looking for it.

So a mix of bad officiating, and a small part personal bias albeit not team specific.

I should say that I don't think referees are inherently bad in this country, I think the speed and technical nature of the sport has increased considerably over the decades and external scrutiny of the game is far more, resulting in every aspect being evaluated in more detail than a referee can do on the spot.

 

You are entirely correct, and I should be ashamed of my grammar, even though the caveat is I'm just out of my bed and having my first coffee of the day it is no excuse.

Like I said in the match thread, there's no point in only bringing this up when there's a decision that you don't like. Bring it up when you benefit from a bad refereeing decision too.

There are clubs now that are fan owned, and fans in general have a huge amount of (unrealised) power. This isn't like the Premier League where money rolls in from foreign TV contracts - we are the only people that keep the game in Scotland going. If we are really upset about the standard of refereeing in Scotland, we can actually do something about it.

As a rule of thumb, if you have a problem it will improve if you spend more resources on it. Making referees full-time is something we should be looking at, to see whether full-time referees make less mistakes than part-time ones. My gut feeling is that they will.

There's no reason why any of the fan-owned clubs couldn't table a members vote within the SFA/SPFL/whoever is responsible for this, and vote to invest more in refereeing. But they don't, so the assumption has to be that this isn't a priority for fans at the minute. I do wonder if, deep down, some fans actually like having refereeing decisions to moan about sometimes.

VAR is a nonsense that we should be keeping as far away from our game as possible. It doesn't eliminate refereeing f**k-ups, and it sucks all the fun out of the game.

[Derry Alli]

Good to see Ric try to take the heat off of himself and his John Hughes thread. 

God loves a trier. 

[Ric]

7 minutes ago, G51 said:

As a rule of thumb, if you have a problem it will improve if you spend more resources on it. Making referees full-time is something we should be looking at, to see whether full-time referees make less mistakes than part-time ones. My gut feeling is that they will.

One positive about full time referees is that it would mean we could get rid of that hateful tory b*****d Douglas Ross, but that's far more about his shitty politics than his performance as an official..

2 minutes ago, Mr. Alli said:

Good to see Ric try to take the heat off of himself and his John Hughes thread. 

God loves a trier. 

No, I know, Yogi stuck in the relegation zone having played 2 games more really shows me up, doesn't it? 

btw, we both know there is no God, after all if there was they'd have punished Dundee for all their sins..

Edited February 4, 2021 by Ric

[VictorOnopko]

Well, Rangers and Celtic both do.  You'd have to ask the referees why that is.  Crowd intimidation probably comes into it in normal times, and perhaps fear of retribution from the more swivel-eyed among OF supporters.

The Morelos and Brown (his second recent elbow throw, obvs, not the first which - amazingly - was punished) incidents are the latest in a long line of examples.

[G51]

3 minutes ago, Ric said:

One positive about full time referees is that it would mean we could get rid of that hateful tory b*****d Douglas Ross, but that's far more about his shitty politics than his performance as an official..

If you think I'm going to go to bat for the Conservative Party you haven't spent much time in the politics forum.

PS: how on earth did you manage to spell indiscretions like that lmao

[Derry Alli]

4 minutes ago, Ric said:

btw, we both know there is no God

Reported. 

[Dons_1988]

If there's a general criticism of the standard of refereeing in this country I would focus more on the smaller decisions throughout 90 minutes rather than the headline ridiculous ones we see.

Games are constantly ruined by the number of free kicks in the middle of the park breaking up any flow of the game. Players play for this obviously, particularly in Scotland but the refs don't know how to manage it or stamp it out. More bookings for constant niggly fouls or a referee with a bit of character to actually stamp it out without losing control of the fixture would improve the standard of games here. It's far too easy to 'buy' a free kick in Scotland.

In terms of the bigger stuff, there's a lot of poor decisions but I wouldn't say I've noticed any club benefit from it in particular this season. Just a collection of shite calls.

 

[Ric]

3 minutes ago, G51 said:

PS: how on earth did you manage to spell indiscretions like that lmao

I'll refer to the answer I gave craigkillie earlier, first post of the day pre-coffee. Thanks for pointing it out though, and I do mean that, my spelling is getting worse the older I get.