Celtic manager Brendan Rodgers has provided more context to his comments about John Beaton after last week’s defeat to Hearts at Tynecastle.
Rodgers blasted the VAR official and referee Don Robertson following several poor decisions in the 2-0 Scottish Premiership loss.
Hyunjun Yang was harshly sent off for a high boot, while Tomoki Iwata was bizarrely judged to have done enough to concede a penalty in a handball incident.
The comments have gotten the Celtic boss into trouble with the SFA. There’s a hearing later this month to determine whether or not he faces a touchline ban.
However, Rodgers hasn’t backed down from his initial heat-of-the-moment assessment and explained why he called out Beaton and why he has a “bigger worry” beyond who the referees are.
Celtic boss Brendan Rodgers clarifies John Beaton comments
The Bhoys manager said [Daily Record, 09/03 print edition, page 66]: “John’s refereed games that he’s been really good in. So I don’t have an issue with that. I’m talking about that one game and that was my view of that game. It’s not about anything else. Let’s focus on the football and on making good decisions.
“We’re all accountable. Everyone knows he was in the VAR. So it’s not a secret – I haven’t mentioned someone who would never have been known. My point was more that it was someone of that experience who looked at it. John’s been around for a while now – he has refereed big games. So I wasn’t calling John out for his name to be out there.
“It was more, ‘This is a top referee managing the game and supposedly a top referee in VAR, under no pressure.’ But they still got it wrong. That’s the bigger worry for me. That it was two of your top referees.
“If you work together as a team and you have experience then hopefully you get to the right decisions. It was a big game. That’s clearly why they were on it. So you’re hoping then for the big decisions to be right.
“And, honestly, I didn’t even think they were big decisions – they had big consequences – but they weren’t big decisions. Not when you actually know the referee has given the right one in the game. And then anyone who watches football will look at the penalty and know that there’s absolutely no way on this earth that it’s a penalty.”
Rodgers feels he is in the right. With that belief, he has every right to stick up for himself and the way he viewed the game last week.
The Celtic boss has come in for some criticism for the way he handled the topic in the media, especially from pundits and rival fans, but for me, he said what was needed.
Some may see it as a deflection tactic but when the errors are as glaring as what we witnessed at Tynecastle then it deserves to be called out.
It makes little sense to then punish managers for giving an opinion, but we’ll see what the outcome is from the SFA towards the end of March.
Receive a digest of our best Celtic content each week direct to your mailbox
