Alan Muir must have had an even more uncomfortable few days than Josh Meekings. It was the assistant referee Muir who looked on impassively from no more than five feet as the ball struck the Inverness Caledonian Thistle defender Meekings on the hand and denied Celtic a goal that would have put them 2-0 up in the Scottish Cup semi-final.
As the commentator’s decibel level rose – “Was it blocked by a hand, though? Was it a handball? Celtic screaming for a penalty here” – it was one of those incidents that begged to be seen again if only to confirm just how blatant the offence was.
In a competition between a chocolate fireguard and an assistant referee, those peculiarly impotent additions vociferously promoted by Michel Platini as an alternative to video technology, the former would surely triumph when it came to usefulness.
Super Caley went on to win 3-2 in extra-time, sparking predictable fury from the hooped half of Glasgow. But even among the Celtic hierarchy, who wrote to the Scottish Football Association asking for an explanation (surely it is pretty obvious), there seemed little appetite to ban Meekings for the final. So, of course, that is just what the governing body set out to do.
Inverness on Thursday succeeded in their attempt to overturn the SFA’s decision to ban Meekings retrospectively, meaning he will now be free to play in the final.
Compounding its enthusiasm for extra officials by seeking to ban Meekings retrospectively for one match, the SFA again proved that two wrongs do not make a right. And that, just when you think football’s governing bodies have run out of ways to display idiocy, they find a new one.
As pointed out by Chris Sutton among others, in the wake of the incident the debate should surely be around how standards of refereeing can be improved – it was the referee, Steven McLean, who ducked the key decision, even if Muir was no help – and the potential for introducing technology that could mitigate errors.
Instead it has become a row over whether Meekings should miss a major final due to the folly of attempting to re-referee a key decision in retrospect.
Some have pointed to the fact that since 2011 players have been banned retrospectively for acts of serious foul play or violent conduct as justification for the SFA’s stance.
In England the law in that area remains an ass, despite recent attempts to clear it up, dependent as it is on whether a referee says he has seen the incident in question.
But in any case there is clearly a major difference between a player smashing his elbow into an opponent’s face and going unpunished and a referee missing a handball.
One punishes dangerous and irresponsible behaviour. The other is a mistake.
Although it is impossible to say definitively whether Meekings deliberately handled the ball – it was travelling at speed but his arms were raised – there is no doubt it should have been a penalty and perhaps a sending-off, too.
Yet it would set an extraordinary precedent to start retrospectively banning players on that basis. Banning him does not give Celtic back their chance of a treble and serves little purpose.
Where is the thin end of the wedge? And how soon would one get to a point where every incident had to be re-refereed on a Monday morning?
It is possible to remain an advocate for banning players for extreme violent conduct – possibly via an expert group that would sit in a similar manner to the dubious goals panel – while believing that banning Meekings for a handball would open a can of worms that would be impossible to cram the lid back on to. And which would serve to distract from the debate that we should be having, which is the extent to which Fifa erred in February by blocking attempts to bring forward in game trials of video technology.
The practical hurdles might prove insurmountable, it might change the character of the game too much or it might rob the referee of his authority. But we will never know unless we try.
One thing is certain: a referee in the stands or an outside broadcast truck could all but instantly have told McLean he had dropped a clanger and saved Muir’s blushes. Not to mention those of the SFA.
