Do Rangers get a "free pass" from referees?

[gannonball]

If anyone has any matches could they set this thread on fire please.

[Dons_1988]

Just now, Merkland Red said:

No.

It was the game where you failed to get 3 points due to your strikers indiscipline.

Wee shame, as they were a class above.

[bennett]

Being top of the league has created numerous heads gone throughout PnB, long may it continue.

 

We are finally back where we belong.

[Dons_1988]

Just now, bennett said:

numerous heads gone

And you just appointed yourself the new Romeo, congratulations.

[AJF]

32 minutes ago, Busta Nut said:

It's fucking sky's fault for recording Morelos stamping on folk and Brown swinging elbows.

It's almost as if selecting a single line of text to quote and remove any context changes the meaning behind it. Even then, you've completely missed the point and put words in my mouth. Good job 10/10.

[Ric]

2 minutes ago, bennett said:

We are finally back where we belong.

Saying you are back suggests you were there in the first place, which would be at odds with the records showing your club was formed in 2012.

[bennett]

Just now, Ric said:

Saying you are back suggests you were there in the first place, which would be at odds with the records showing your club was formed in 2012.

Tremble before Ricks Sevco post...

[bennett]

6 minutes ago, Dons_1988 said:

And you just appointed yourself the new Romeo, congratulations.

I think you'll find that Romeo originally copied me.

[Ric]

4 minutes ago, bennett said:

Tremble before Ricks Sevco post...

History is a terrible thing isn't it?

btw, I love that you think misspelling my username is considered as some sort of passive aggressive insult.

[AJF]

The OP has probably achieved what they set out to do - they've united the majority of P&B in the opinion that Rangers are favoured above all other teams by referees.

Interestingly, the reason with the most votes thus far is "it is because referees are incompetent and are failing to recognise red card offences because they are bad at their job".

This then begs the question - if the most popular answer is that referees favour Rangers because they are incompetent, then does that mean each time a referee makes an incompetent decision that favours a team other than Rangers, is the referee favouring them? Or is that simply a mistake and the only team they can favour is Rangers?

[Orbix]

5 minutes ago, AJF said:

The OP has probably achieved what they set out to do - they've united the majority of P&B in the opinion that Rangers are favoured above all other teams by referees.

Interestingly, the reason with the most votes thus far is "it is because referees are incompetent and are failing to recognise red card offences because they are bad at their job".

This then begs the question - if the most popular answer is that referees favour Rangers because they are incompetent, then does that mean each time a referee makes an incompetent decision that favours a team other than Rangers, is the referee favouring them? Or is that simply a mistake and the only team they can favour is Rangers?

Ssh you can’t ask that question. Just say Sevco are pure masons.

[Ric]

5 minutes ago, AJF said:

The OP has probably achieved what they set out to do...

Oh, now, AJF, I think you do me a disservice.. ..I was merely wishing to gauge the opinion of the finest forum-based posters in Scottish football (well, except for Bennet, of course).

In regard to your other point, I sort of addressed it in my reply on the first page, but in short if the referee "favours" them explicitly or implicitly it's still them being "favoured".

 

[bennett]

10 minutes ago, Ric said:

History is a terrible thing isn't it?

btw, I love that you think misspelling my username is considered as some sort of passive aggressive insult.

This phone keeps changing words, it must be one of those  passive aggressive phones.

Naughty Sony phone 

 

Edited February 4, 2021 by bennett

[Ric]

Just now, bennett said:

This phone keeps changing words, it must be one of those  passive aggressive phone. 

Naughty Sony phone 

Actually, that's fair enough, it seemed such a low-key troll I wasn't actually sure if it was intended or not, but you kept on doing it.

[Game of throw-ins]

Answer: Yes.

Not much of it is conscious bias although I wouldn't rule out the rare case.  I'd say there's two main factors:

1. Fear and intimidation.  The potential consequences of a mistake that costs Rangers are just scarier that the consequences of a mistake that costs, say, St Mirren.  If you gave Rangers a soft penalty there will be mild protests from St Mirren fans.  If you gave St Mirren a soft penalty that cost Rangers points there will be hell to pay. Media scrutiny will be intense, and it will be biased.  Nobody wants to be slaughtered in the press.  Not to mention the threat of nutters in the street or in the pub.

2. Unconscious bias.  Human beings have a strong tendency to see what they want to see and see what they expect to see.  Referees expect Rangers to beat Hamilton and it's a more comfortable narrative for them if they do.  If Rangers run out winners even mistakes you made against them won't be scrutinised too hard.  You expect Rangers to win, and you sort of know it's in your interests that they do.  That's going to colour how you see every incident that's open to subjective interpretation.

To be fair the same things operate in favour of Celtic, only to slightly lesser extent.  Celtic fans love to draw attention, with some justification, to a bias against them vis-a-vis Rangers.  They forfeit every right to sympathy by being in denial about the even stronger bias in their favour vis-a-vis everyone else.

[DukDukGoose]

30 minutes ago, CCB19035 said:

That Boyata challenge on GMS still annoys me to this day. A stonewall pen and it wasn't even considered. Believe Celtic were also a penalty that day for the most accidental handball you'll see. 
 

The Edouard dive in the Scottish Cup Final against Hearts is often overlooked as well. Couldn't understand why there wasn't a huge outcry at the time. 

For a handball at least a yard outside the box.

Celtic fans were furious just over a month or so later when the same referee gave Rangers a penalty for a handball. Outside the box.

[Busta Nut]

30 minutes ago, AJF said:

It's almost as if selecting a single line of text to quote and remove any context changes the meaning behind it. Even then, you've completely missed the point and put words in my mouth. Good job 10/10.

sure I did. We see your bleating. No one is interested. 

[AJF]

1 minute ago, Busta Nut said:

sure I did. We see your bleating. No one is interested. 

Well if you genuinely believe that I'm suggesting Sky are at fault for Morelos being retrospectively banned, then batter in. More fool you, as they say.

[Dons_1988]

8 minutes ago, CCB19035 said:

It was. 
 

They've  adopted this victim mentality after rising from the ashes, for years they literally couldn't accept they weren't as good as they thought they should be. Hence the constant statements about this and that, the ridicule of referees when they didn't get the odd decision etc. 
 

Gerrard clearly briefed by someone in the club that they felt they were being treated differently. Hilarious. 

Indeed. And why was he briefed?

Because when the Rangers manager throws it out there, it's guaranteed wall to wall media coverage for the following week. 

[gaz5]

There's no conspiracy from referees to treat any club differently. I firmly believe they are all trying their level best to apply the rules fairly, the simple fact of the matter is that they are all human beings and as a result will behave like human beings and make mistakes.

The Premier League in Scotland is the "pinnacle" of our game, yet players (and managers) will make dozens of mistakes per game. None of them get it right all of the time and the teams that win tend to contain the group that get it right more often than everyone else.

The issue is that we expect referees to be different. But if the best footballers in the country make bad decisions every game, why do we expect the best referees not to? By virtue of being human they are going to make a James Hunt of it as well, no one in human history has ever got every decision right.

At the lower levels it's even more pronounced. I had my fair share of fun with referees so I realise this might be a bit rich, but the guy referring in League 2/Non League cos he's not good enough for the premier League is no different to the player playing in league 2/non league because he's not good enough for the premier League. Those players will make more mistakes, as will the referees, but we all expect them to operate at the level of the guy who gets the world cup final to officiate.

For me, I think 2 things would help:

1. We get rid of this ludicrous notion that referees have to get everything right or they're cheating, a standard no other person in the game is held to.

2. Referees (and officials at Hampden!) have to get better at admitting referees got it wrong when it's absolutely clear they did. This stance of both them and their bosses backing them regardless (as anyone who has been through the appeals process will know!) is as much of a nonsense. It contributes to 1. If they themselves are going to keep telling us they're perfect, we're going to expect them to be.

The best referees I ever encountered were the ones you could talk to and were happy to admit they got something wrong or didn't see it. There's nowhere you can go from there, conversation over, at least they're being honest. The ones who annoy the hell out of everyone are the ones that got it wrong, everyone knows they got it wrong, everyone knows they know they know they got it wrong, but they carry on the charade of being right with the "f**k off you are beneath me" hands. [emoji846]

TL/DR: everyone makes a c**t of it, doing so doesn't make a referee/referees involved in a conspiracy and it's ok to admit it when they do make a c**t of it rather than keep flogging a dead horse.