You could practically hear the clacking of headlines when Rangers’ two penalties in their victory against Livingston over the weekend were being penned.
Although young Ross McCausland has been called a diver because James Tavernier missed the first penalty, the captain correctly converted the second.
Even though Mikey Devlin’s handball from a corner was the more obvious of the two penalties, you won’t be shocked to learn that the McCausland award seems to be proof of a bit of a penalty scam.
The usual suspects in Celtics punditry have been stirring things up and getting supporters chatting on the internet; the excitement has even extended to suggestions for changes to the way the game is refereed.
The most recent to poke fun at James Tavernier’s “extraordinary” run of penalties against Rangers on Sky Sports was Mark Wilson.
The rumour that Rangers and the referees are involved in a conspiracy has spread beyond our Old Firm opponents, and it is now a common joke in Scottish Premiership football lingo.
This week, Stuart Cosgrove even discussed the “inherent bias” in Rangers’ favour, which resulted in the team receiving more tickets than Aberdeen for the League Cup Final.
Most heinously, James Tavernier, who has benefitted from 58 penalty goals for Rangers overall, is frequently called a spot-kick merchant despite scoring 54 goals from other parts of the game as a result of this talk.
On the other hand, there is a darker theory that Rangers appear to receive more penalties as a result of the referees’ and the VAR officials’ usage of blue-tinted spectacles.
Rangers and Celtic are tied for the number of Scottish Premiership penalties.
It’s intriguing that Celtic has a negative party line when it comes to VAR, which also controversially disallowed two goals for Rangers in their 2-0 victory over Livingston.
Brendan Rodgers says he would own the technology tomorrow, perhaps taking after his far more well-liked predecessor Ange Postecoglou.
Much more rational was Rangers manager Philippe Clement, who said that the whole exercise is worth it since there are “less mistakes” and more “honest” judgements.
However, despite the fact that Rangers seem to have benefited from more penalties than anybody else, several former Celtic players and other participants in the Scottish game seem to be disregarding this information.
This season, Parkhead and Rangers have split the amount of spot kicks granted in the Scottish Premiership (6).
We’re confident that this striking statistic—which shows that both sides have scored four goals and missed two—won’t change anything for people who have already made up their minds.
This latest example of the worst football stitch-up in history likely simply indicates that Rangers are incapable of perfecting their beneficial penalty method.
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