Has refs controversy changed your mind?

I know as well as anyone that we're not a good side now, however if some of the decisions that have gone Rangers way had actually gone Celtics way there is no doubt we would be top of the league.

I also know that the refs are not very good & keep making mistakes in all SPL games. Its just that when Walter Smith was asked recently by a journalist to name an incident where Rangers feel a ref gave a decision against them he had to go back 15 months.

It's very commendable if people think that, to use Mowbrays expression, we should just take it on the chin & get on with it.

However don't you think its holding Celtic back as a football club.
Although I don't really believe we will get into English football in the near future, I have no doubt that given our support we would be challenging for the English title in not too many years.

We will have to get a better manager than we have now of course.

 

The English won't have us and FIFA & UEFA would use it as an excuse to insist on one British national team which would result in ENORMOUS bias as only English players got picked to represent a country which the London media would continue to refer to as England / English.

Also, imagine the crowd safety issues with our fans being targeted by all sorts of anti-Scottish and anti-Irish neds down South.

The standard of most things in the SPL is *. Even the TV coverage is dung. Referees are only one of the problems. Our problem this season is we're not good enough - the manager and the players haven't done it on the park.

Jock Stein once said that we had to take on 12 men every game. He didn't ever use establishment bias to excuse getting beaten. As someone else said, it makes us look like bad losers. Drop all this bollocks about referees. We need better sports facilities for kids in particular and the public in general. We need a better product in order to attract better media coverage which in turn will generate more revenue.

In the short term the problem is our playing staff and our tactics. In the long term the problem is bigger than referees.

 

There is nothing in Scottish football that is good except Celtic, not anymore. Aside from typical Scottish anachronism, fear and outright stupidity there is no reason why we shouldn't be chasing down every avenue to join the English pyramid.

We have reached the unique situtation of being bigger than the League we play in. Celtic is a global club and a global business stuck in an isolated, introverted backwater which is ran by unqualified and incompetent idiots.

The long-running financial crisis in Scottish football in particular has been a major problem. The farce that is Setanta and the new joint SKY/ESPN rights deal epitomises this. Scotland thinks small and acts that way, while lying to itself that its actions are of some use or importance even to itself, nevermind the rest of the world.

Look at the kind of sponsorship we're attracting. Tennants for * sake .

Voting blocs are made up of the likes of St Mirren, Hamilton, St Johnstone, etc. What do these clubs have in common with us? What joint strategic aims can we set with that lot which bring benefits for us, a club looking to expand globally and compete in Europe?

We have no common ground with Scottish football. We've hit the glass ceiling, a ceiling which is slowly getting lower. We've outgrown this backwards Association. The utter inability of the SFA to act in a fair and reasonable manner, be it the officials on the pitch or the blazers at Hampden, only serves to further show how much of a ball and chain it all is for us.

The English pyramid however is a major player in world football, and offers up a financial benefit that we can only dream about in the SPL, a benefit that only the most gross mismanagement can turn into a hinderence. The benefits of the EPL on a club like Celtic, at all levels, is undeniably something the board must look to utilise. Anything else and it would not be doing its job properly.

 

We are not even up to winning the SPL against a bad Rangers side in the last couple of years and many SPL teams are taking points off us so its pure arrogance to say we are too good for the SPL.

 

We're never getting into the English league and I'd be against it anyway. We should focus on making our league better.

 

It wouldn't be a case of saying we've outgrown the SPL.. That would make us look arrogant and deluded..
It would simply be a case of seeing what avenues can be explored.. Sky Tv call the shots big time and if they ever feel the EPL has gone stale or needs to be revamped they could threaten to pull the plug completely or reduce their offers (which would probably never happen but is a great bargaining tool) then they'd only need to say Jump and the EPL would be at their mercy.. The SPL product isn't very appealing and I don't think it's going to improve , I rarely watch games on SKY or ESPN when we aren't playing (maybe 1 a season) and I feel it's the same for many fans so it makes you wonder why they even bother.. I'd guess they are puting money into the SPL because it costs buttons but you never know it could be with a view to doing something in the future..

 

Refs controversy hasn't changed my mind at all.

It's confirmed my existing belief that we need to get out of the SPL as quick as possible.

The bias is now so nakedly obvious that it's just become a joke.

Expecting fair refereeing at Ibrox is like expecting a fair election in Zimbabwe.

 

agree
problem is there are 2 issues here,
1. celtic have played crap this season losing games we should never have lost,nothing to do with bad refereeing.
2.so much has went on in the past and been found out to be true that its
hard not to think that referees this season have favoured the huns.

a bad decision is hard to take but you just get on with it,but a biast
decision is something else altogether.
scott browns ordering off kind of confirmed it

 

"Outgrown" does not mean "too good for".

Celtic as an entity, as a brand, is bigger than the market it is confined to. A sustainable football club, like any sustainable business, requires potential to constant, steady growth. Where we can grow while part of the SPL? What does it offer us?

 

If the reffs and SFA are so strongly against us then how could we be in the top two most successful clubs in Scotland by a long shot and have controlled the premier league for the majority of the time it has existed??? Also, decisions dont only go against us, you watch any match in the SPL and you will see dodgy decisions due to the fact that the reffs are not up to scratch. Rangers have been extremely jammy this year with decisions but I cant believe that referees go out with a mindset to let them win

 

yes for me!

and as regrads to going to england? get real they * said at the last vote that we werent a great pull(just basic bullshit from most of the chairmen down there who know that us and the huns would do something down there with the money we would get any way thats an argument for another day).

i would rather get this atlantic league on the go along with the teams from
holland
norway
sweden
denmark
portugal etc! that sounds better for me than staying in the spl now. i used to sit here and say we should do this and that to improve our league! i still do in a way but no * else seems to give a * now so why should we?

 

Two words: Bobby Tait.

*spit*

It was the "Broken Watch Tait" affair that helped me understand the truth.

 

I don't know how much I buy this "they're all against us" situation. I know the ref's have made bad calls, but I don't think this is some greater conspiracy to ruin Celtic. Just my opinion though, and I do live outside of the UK so I don't see it on a daily basis, as many of you may.

 

ETims Online Celtic Fanzine - LEVELLING THE PLAYING FIELD

 

Fascinating article from Etims, I just never realised the extent of this.

In another thread I suggested that Billy McNeil or some other respected Celtic figure should stand up for us in the media.It seems he has been doing that for some time, but I have never read about it the Daily Record.

Of course it doesn't seem to make any difference.

I still have a feeling that John Reid or someone at Celtic is going to break cover & blow this all over the papers.

 

If you look at the first twenty five or so years of our existence we actually won much more than the Huns over this period, this at a time when sectarianism would have been at a peak, it doesn't add up.

Also Hibs and Dundee Utd (then Dundee Hibs) were/are also catholic clubs and neither claims the same history of persecution.

This thing we have is a kind of sickness and reflects very badly on us, it just makes us look like bad losers IMO. If I was a ref I'd be pretty bemused too at all these people insinuating that I was so religiously intolerant that I would be unable to ref a football match fairly, not to mention that a number of them are catholic themselves!

And I expect to be called a Hun again for making these sensible, rational insights in the face of the hysterical paranoia.

 

No. Celtic is a Scottish club and they should stay in Scottish football. It is not the fault of the officials. It is all down to greed. Greed has created a large gap between some nations over others. I would not support Celtic in an English league, I don't want to lose our sovereignty.