Scott Brown should never have been sent off for Celtic at Kilmarnock

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Scott Brown’s red card picked up was one of the talking points of the weekend.

His last-minute winner at Kilmarnock on Sunday sparked wild celebrations from the Hoops support. This ended with the Celtic players right in with the fans as euphoria set in over the newly-established eight-point gap.

As you can imagine, Bobby Madden gave Brown a second yellow card and sent him up the tunnel. Celtic were reduced to 10 men in the closing stages and had to dig deep to see out the points.

Brown was sent off thanks to a second yellow card offence. This was simply down to the fact he apparently celebrated excessively, which in the laws of the game would be a sending off.

However, that’s an unfair accusation to label at the Celtic captain. When he rattled home the last minute goal, he didn’t jump into the supporters. Instead, the fans came running onto the pitch.

There’s no rule stating that Brown can’t go near the fans. He’s entitled to go as close to them as he wants without touching them. You can view the goal here.

Brown didn’t cause an infringement

Yet, because of the supporters storming onto the pitch, Madden felt it right to give the red card.

You can in a way see why Madden felt the second yellow was justified. But he clearly wasn’t watching the finer details, and there’s hardly any surprise there.

Where the misconception is evident, however, is in who is excessively celebrating. It’s certainly not Brown, who simply does his trademark Broony stance and celebrates towards supporters.

The Celtic captain didn’t invite anyone on with open arms, he didn’t go jumping into the away and, and he certainly didn’t do anything any other player wouldn’t have.

Celtic can feel hard done by in the end over the Brown red card. He didn’t do anything wrong but was booked for the nature of the crowd’s celebration. That was hardly in the Hoops skipper’s control.

Brown will now miss Sunday’s match at home to Motherwell, which hopefully won’t be much of a disaster. But there’s no denying he can feel a tad disappointed in his red.