The Parkhead boss will be missing from the dugout against Livingston when the Scottish Premiership restarts this weekend.
The key difference between Brendan Rodgers’ Celtic ref blast and Philippe Clement’s veiled swipe at officials has been named – as former Parkhead star Mark Wilson mounted a defence of the Ibrox boss.
Rodgers was hit with a one-game ban with one suspended for a breach of SFA Disciplinary Rule 72 following the defeat to Hearts as he called out referee Don Robertson and John Beaton in the VAR room. The rule forbids players or managers from criticising officials ‘in such a way as to indicate bias or incompetence on the part of such match official’ – with the Celtic boss unable to swerve a punishment having used the word “incompetent” during his post-match tirade in reference to Beaton.
But the decision has raised some eyebrows among the Hoops’ support – with some pointing to previous comments made by the Rangers boss earlier in the campaign. A caller to Clyde 1 Superscoreboard claimed that “the Rangers manager can say what he likes and nothing gets done about it” – in reference to previous pot shots the Lights Blues’s boss has taken at the performance of match officials.
Notably, the Belgian hit out at referee Nick Walsh and VAR Willie Collum following defeat to Celtic in December. Alistair Johnston had appeared to handle the ball in the box under pressure from Abdallah Sima – with Collum failing to step in to award the spot-kick. It was later noted that Sima was in an offside position before the flashpoint.
Rangers would later take up the gripe with the SFA, but in his post-match debrief Clement said: “My biggest frustration is that if there’s a clear handball, I don’t understand why it’s not a penalty given. There was no communication towards me. And if the communication is that Sima is offside, I’m not a referee – but there should have been a clear signal from VAR for offside. Then everyone knows the decision. There was no communication at that moment. Otherwise, the signal of the referee is not correct.”
Responding to the irked caller host Gordon Duncan pointed out in response: ‘You are allowed to criticise them. It’s just that Rule 72 says that you can’t indicate bias or incompetence.”
Former Celtic star Wilson added: “I think it’s the lack of the word incompetence. It’s as basic and simple as that. It was an incredible hard interview for Brendan Rodgers to do right after the game and I do feel for managers, because of course they want to put across to their fans what they thought of the game.
“The line is very thin that they tread on. He overstepped the mark with some of the language that he used. He just said the wrong word.”
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