"Corruption? Cheating? What are you talking about? It wouldn’t happen. And just how do you think they manage that?"

That’s a natural response to the strongest of anti-sporting accusations. But if you’ve been paying attention to Scottish football then you’ll know that the diabolical actions which ultimately stole a title from Hearts have been years in the making. An excellent summary was provided in the Heart and Hand update earlier this month which you can listen to below:

This was the day after Celtic were gifted a contentious extra-time penalty against Motherwell which contrived to keep their title hopes alive and effectively handed them the advantage going into the last game. This incident was the latest in a flurry of match-changing decisions in the preceding games (including two clear penalty claims being denied to Hearts in their game against Motherwell).

Inception

David Edgar at H&H points to some key steps along the way to where we are now. The prime mover being John Reid of the Labour party, who joined Celtic as a Chairman in 2007. His intent was not only to ensure Celtic were a competitive football club but to give them every possible advantage imaginable. With hindsight, it’s likely that he influenced and pulled strings in other areas, which lead to massive benefits for Celtic.

Around the same period, the SFA introduced initiatives such as the “cheats charter,” designed to clamp down on simulation and unsporting behaviour through retrospective action. This would later evolve into the Compliance Officer system, where incidents could be reviewed after matches.

A change of faces also saw Stewart Regan being brought in to the SFA as Chief Executive in October 2010 (replacing former Rangers player Gordon Smith), whilst Neil Doncaster had joined the SPL (replacing Lex Gold). You can call it sour grapes but I don’t think either governing body has been Rangers neutral from this point forward.

Opportunity

Shortly after, we had ‘Dougie-gate’ where referee Dougie McDonald awarded a penalty, spoke to his assistant and then reversed the decision. He got the correct decision but apparently misled the Celtic manager about the sequence of events. This was the opportunity that the Reid-led machine was waiting for and they cranked up the pressure. The fallout forced Craven to resign and McDonald to retire. A referee strike would follow when the referees felt targeted and not supported by the Stewart Regan's SFA. One effect of people leaving (being forced out of) is that it leaves space for others to be brought in.

Another of Reid’s tactics was to have Celtic lawyers crawling all over Hampden and finding roles to influence SFA procedures and outcomes. This no doubt intimidated and influenced many there who weren’t well versed in legal matters. We were then treated to a progression of Celtic-minded Compliance Officers who would pick up the retrospective punishment baton and run with it.

At this point people need to recognise that governing bodies and their systems can be shaped by the people that run them. They rely on trust and on sufficient diversity of opinion and agenda to keep them honest. If that balance is removed then the system lurches in one direction. It’s one thing Celtic being represented within the SFA, it’s another the SFA being run for the benefit of one club.

Interference

The first Compliance officer was Vincent Lunny. He was reportedly involved in rewriting the football rule book and reviewing on field incidents for a “judicial review panel”. You may recall some high profile cases, mostly involving Rangers players, which often resulted in retrospective bans. You would also remember the phrase ‘Trial by Sportscene’, where any incident selected by BBC Sportscene would be offered up for judicial review.

The problem here is again agenda and bias. A cynic would say Reid’s influence burned through BBC Scotland and much of the output from then on was openly hostile. The coverage of the tax case, especially from the likes of Chris McLaughlin, was unrelenting propaganda. Finally in 2015, under friendly ownership, Rangers would ban McLaughlin from Ibrox. Unfortunately, the BBC saw this as a green light to continue the onslaught for many more years, including refusing to cover Rangers' home matches.

So here we have several institutions that operate under overt Celtic-influence and which openly work against Rangers. Sportscene would target Rangers players and pass them to the CO. The CO would readily accept these as public interest incidents and proceed to review and punish these players. Clear stamps and elbows from Celtic players were ignored and it would take until 2014 before Leigh Griffiths was cited as the first Celtic player.

Messaging

The CO system was closed and not designed to be impartial. The message was clear: Rangers players were under scrutiny and would not get away with anything; Celtic players could do what they want, but any opponent challenging them would be reviewed and punished.

Think about that situation. We have the governing body and external broadcasters working to assist one club. It may seem trivial or insignificant at that time, but it was there. At what stage does influence bleed into corruption and then bleed into cheating? In 2012, I'd suggest corruption was already materially affecting Scottish football. My question is always why would it stop there? For information: Michael Stewart was actively involved in Trial by Sportscene and he would later commentate for Celtic TV during the pandemic.

Influence

Another egregious example of influence occurred in 2012 when there was a vote on the 11-1 rule within the then SPL. Previously those rights had benefitted the Old Firm, where Rangers and Celtic could dictate what happened on any issue. Now with Rangers in limbo it meant that Celtic could be outvoted. Despite publicly backing reform when it came to the vote Stewart Milne (for Aberdeen) voted against that change. This was not an organic decision and raises questions about whether external pressure played a role? His manic interview suggested as much. Of course the result aligned with Celtic’s wishes. Think about that, one club having more power than all others combined and choosing the outcome it wants.

The SPFL was then formed in June 2013 from the SPL and SFL. A cynic would say the reorganisation was to bury any dubious actions of the past years and consolidate power for one club. Doncaster got the top job at the SPFL and he was rewarded with a bigger salary. Doncaster’s remit and loyalty are clear and he now receives £450k and a two year notice period to do just that (I’m sure Sun Tzu had a thing to say about feeding your army on your enemies resources). Again, stop and think. Has he ever really held Celtic to account? Has he ever proactively improved the game in Scotland? Has he secured the best TV deal possible or grown funding or exposure? Did he oversee a vote to hand Celtic a title prematurely due to COVID? Did he withhold monies and make veiled threats to secure that decision? You might find the answer in email spam folders...

And so in 2014 the league rumbled on. We were then subjected to more Compliance Officers, namely Tony McGlennan and Clare Whyte. McGlennan’s key achievement is listed as conducting an 8‑month investigation into Rangers’ 2011 UEFA licence. The message from the CO was the same as before with the benefit of doubt always given to their chosen club. Years would pass with this pattern of assistance being hammered out and re-enforced in the press. Ironically, for many years Celtic didn’t need really need assistance as they had a significantly stronger team and very little competition, for the title at least - still, better to be sure eh?

Ian Maxwell would replace Stewart Regan in May 2018 and his loyalty looks to be to those that put him there. Around this time, Martin Henry was drafted in to carry out a review into sexual abuse in Scottish football. His report was considered by many, including victim groups, to be a whitewash and used to cover and diminish Celtic's role in abuse cases. Friendly commentators at the BBC were on hand to run cover and allocate blame to as many clubs as possible, except Celtic FC of course. Do you see how it works yet?

Bias

Any big decision against Celtic (no matter whether correct or not) was met with intense media uproar. And then against the provided script, Rangers won the New Year match at the end of 2018 and despite a performance initially praised by all the narrative shifted and Beaton was targeted and threatened. Beaton is on record as calling this a ‘turning point’ in his career.

This is now getting to the crux of the matter. Can referees give assistance to one team at any given incident, conscious or not? The answer is yes; that is the power and responsibility they hold. Agendas exist so why wouldn't corruption exist within Scottish football? The question is whether these factors are influencing current decisions on the field or behind VAR? If a referee saw a 50/50 and wanted to give it one way or another then he could. He wouldn’t need to be threatened, blackmailed, or classically 'corrupt', he would just need to be conditioned to respond in certain ways.

It could be unconscious bias, the sculpted output of an refereeing system (now run by Willie Collum on an estimated £100k per year) with a selection process set up to fast-track those amenable to giving the desired decisions (and I’m sure £800 a match to be sub-standard referees is a very good gig). You would hope that this doesn’t occur, and if it ever did then the system should autocorrect. For any rational football association the purpose of its officiating team, its key objective, is to ensure impartiality when applying the rules of the game. Even if perfect accuracy, quality and consistency is not possible then parity and neutrality should be the driver.

If it allowed apparent bias, with no correction, then we could say the system was broken or compromised. This lack of any perceptible correction is the smoking gun for me, it tells me the system is working exactly as they want it to. Those who make clear mistakes are even rewarded with Cup Final selections.

Do Celtic still get decisions against them? Yes. Will they still lose and draw games? Yes. But at certain instances the chosen officials will give them the benefit of the doubt. Will Rangers or Hearts still get decisions for them? Yes, just not when it really matters.

Old Firm games in recent years have been a predictable mess of Rangers goals disallowed or players carded for innocuous reasons, with Celtic players (Maeda/Trusty/Johnston) avoiding punishment. This year alone has been as bad as any and looking back, Celtic under O’Neil were kept in many matches long before the split. Only when it became clear that Hearts were a viable threat then the system pivoted and targeted them.

Desperate

What we have witnessed in the past month has been obscene, truly desperate actions from compromised men. Indeed, increasing numbers of credible outside observers agree that Hearts had the title stolen from them. For our part, Rangers fans said it would happen and happen it did. For a title ultimately decided by two-points, the officials directly affected seven or more points in the closing games. How can that be explained? In fact, the damage was done to Hearts long before Celtic players and supporters run onto the pitch last Saturday. Abandoning the game would not have changed that 90 minutes but it will be telling how the SFA/SPFL react. Thus far, their statements have been lacking to say the least and they’ve been content with the outcome which gifts Celtic a title and a possible +£30m.

I feel Rangers have tried and failed miserably to address this corruption for a long time. It feels like people just don’t want to admit what has been happening. Since 2011 Rangers have been very much on the outside and screaming into the void alone. The media would ridicule or shut down any point or protest. It’s the easiest thing in the world to turn rival fans against Rangers. So maybe Hearts being cheated so blatantly is what the game needs. I hope all fans can put differences aside to drain the swamp that John Reid created and right his many wrongs.

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