John Beaton and his family spent Thursday night at home under police protection after the Scottish FA said a leak of the referee’s personal details online followed the uproar over his controversial penalty call in Celtic’s win at Motherwell.
Beaton awarded Celtic a penalty at Fir Park on Wednesday evening after a VAR check, judging Motherwell’s Sam Nicholson to have handled a long throw into the box. Kelechi Iheanacho converted in the 100th minute to seal a 3-2 victory that left Celtic one point behind Scottish Premiership leaders Hearts heading into Saturday’s title-decider at Celtic Park.
The Scottish FA condemned attempts to compromise the safety of match officials and said the reaction to decisions had helped create an environment that puts staff and officials in jeopardy. It said it would seek to strengthen its rules to better protect those integral to the game.
In a statement, the governing body said such vigilantism, driven by decisions seen as right or wrong on the field, was a scourge on the national game and said it was grateful to Police Scotland for swift intervention. It added that the backlash was part of a wider season-long climate of criticism, intolerance and scapegoating from media pundits, supporters, official supporters’ groups, clubs, players, managers and former match officials.
The association also said the danger was fuelled by a hysterical media narrative and irresponsible knee-jerk post-match interviews, commentary and official social media posts. It defended referees as fallible, saying mistakes would be made on the field and subjective calls would be missed in front of the VAR monitor, just as managers pick the wrong team, goalkeepers concede soft goals and strikers miss from five yards out.
The clash at Fir Park mattered beyond the late penalty itself because Celtic’s victory tightened the title race to a single point with Hearts before the weekend decider in Glasgow. But the bigger issue now is the safety of officials after a decision on the field spilled into a threat serious enough to force police protection for Beaton and his family.
The Scottish FA said it would not allow that to become the norm.
