FULLY three days after Celtic’s 3-2 win at Pittodrie last Wednesday, Jota’s winning goal remained the subject of bizarrely intense scrutiny in the Scottish media. One more day of this and Nicola Sturgeon will be asking Police Scotland to send out Downing Street partygate-style questionnaires. “Can you tell us, Mr Abada just what you were doing in the vicinity of the Aberdeen penalty area at the time of the alleged incident? Failure to answer this truthfully may result in such action as we deem fit.”

Similar media consternation followed Celtic’s 1-0 home win against Hearts on December 2 when the hair of Kyogo’s right eye-brow might have been in an offside position when scoring the winning goal. Two weeks later Malky Mackay, the Ross County manager was outraged that the referee had played too much added time and that this was responsible for Tony Ralston’s majestic winner at Dingwall. Normally, any team playing against opponents who have been reduced to ten men would be gleeful when a referee gives you seven minutes to make your numerical advantage count and a chance to snatch three points instead of one.

If Scotland’s football journalists had shown even a fraction of the rigour they bring to analysing marginal decisions in favour of Celtic these days then they and not the blogging community would have broken the story that was sitting under their noses in 2012: the financial collapse and liquidation of Rangers FC.

So, perhaps their newly-discovered attention to detail ought to be celebrated. It’s always about sporting integrity and this must be paramount when the coroner’s reports get underway to ascertain the actual time and cause of crucial Celtic goals.

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In each of these three instances the managers of Aberdeen, Hearts and Ross County studiously overlooked decisions that had previously gone their way against Celtic and which were clearly more dubious than those that formed the basis of their outrage. In the Aberdeen game no-one has yet adequately explained why Jota’s clearly onside goal before half-time was disallowed. This would have made anything that followed it immaterial. In the newspaper reports I read this incident was either completely overlooked or given only a passing mention.

Neither did the media or Robbie Neilson spend any time scrutinising the two key – and palpably wrong – decisions that gifted Hearts their 2-1 win on the opening day of the campaign at Tynecastle: a red card challenge on Calum McGregor and a legitimate goal wrongly disallowed for offside.

Malky Mackay certainly wasn’t bearing in mind the dismissal of Carl Starfelt for pointing out to the referee that he was failing in his basic duty of care to him by refusing to stop play when he’d clearly sustained a bloodied head injury.

You don’t want to labour these points too much, though. Celtic play at a speed and a level of intensity that can make marginal decisions – both for and against – even more difficult to call. What does irk Celtic supporters though, is that while Ange Postecoglou has never complained about lapses in the match officials’ judgment he knows that almost every other week an opposing manager will seek to disparage Celtic’s victory with juvenile appeals. It betrays a lack of class and an absence of professional respect.

It also points to something more desperate. Without being unkind to the likes of Mackay, Neilson and Stephen Glass they know that – in terms of football coaching – this is as good as it gets for them. They also know that, like many others in their position, they are perhaps only a six-month sequence of adverse results away from being sacked.

Thus, they choose to ‘game’ defeats by Celtic. They too have noticed the curious recent tendency of some among the football writers to set up three-day committees of inquiry into problem Celtic goals. In this way, their pleas in mitigation for another defeat are given a multi-media platform that drowns out any issues their own supporters might have with tactical approach or team selection. It helps them too when they are next invited to meet the board of directors to offer an explanation for a wretched run of results. “Look, Mr Chairman; it’s not just me who thinks we were robbed against Celtic.”

If you were being paranoid you might detect something more insidious going on here: that the wall of noise recently being constructed around decisions in Celtic games (and it’s only Celtic games) is purely for the benefit of some referees in a very close title race. These chaps are only human and, no matter how professionally impervious they may be to outside influences, they are alive to the narrative and the chatter. I’m happy enough at this stage though, to give them the benefit of the doubt.

As it is, I’m much more deeply concerned about another aspect of how Celtic are refereed in some games. On several occasions this season Celtic players have been victims of tackles which have endangered them. None of the perpetrators received the obvious red cards their challenges merited. This too forms a narrative and one which is far more troubling than the absurd scrutiny of some of Celtic’s goals.

I’m keen to add here that Rangers players, in recent meetings with Celtic, have sought to play the game in a largely professional and honest manner. I’ve never felt that any Celtic players have been in jeopardy in these encounters against our closest rivals. I can’t say that about many other domestic club matches this season.

The failure of some referees to punish these tackles appropriately means that opposing managers and players (and who can blame them) sense that some physical leeway is permitted when they face Celtic. The shocking tackle on Celtic’s Chloe Craig that went unpunished by the referee in the SWPL match against Glasgow City on Friday night was the worst I’ve seen this season. I don’t think there was any malice but the official’s refusal to show a red card was a failure in his duty of care to Craig.

This has repercussions for Celtic players’ physical wellbeing. It might also affect the manager’s thinking when deciding just when a player should be restored to the fray following an injury spell.

Celtic’s board of directors have an obvious duty of care to the men and women who wear the green and white hoops. This far outstrips any fiduciary duty they may have to institutional shareholders. The very least they can do in exercising this is quietly but firmly to voice their concerns to Crawford Allan, the Head of Referee Operations at the SFA. And maybe they should be increasing the players’ insurance premiums between now and the end of the season.