Does Rule 200 Highlight Scottish Referee Subversion?

The latest Disciplinary Rule 200 usage saw Flanagan of The Rangers cited for an incident in the Derby last Sunday. The latest in a line of furious Ibrox sourced statements lamented this fact and brought into focus wider questions about retrospective discipline applied to SPFL matches.

As Celtic have been impacted by Rule 200 more than any other SPFL club, here’s a look into what is happening.

What is Disciplinary Rule 200?

The SFA defines it as:

“Disciplinary Rule 200: Where any one of the sending off offences of (A1) serious foul play, (A2) violent conduct, and (A3) spitting at an opponent or other person is committed by a player at a match, but that sending off offence was not seen by any of the match officials at the time that it was committed the mandatory suspension for that sending off offence as provided for in Annex C of the Judicial Panel Protocol shall be applied to the player.”

Basically, a ref missed a clear sending off. With only four officials at each match(!), and without the back up of Video Assistant Referee (VAR), occasionally a referee and officials will miss what constitutes a sending off offence. Or, in this case, does see the offence but misreads it as a yellow card on the day (something not specifically covered by the rule – but heh! I am all for “spirit of the law”).

What Are The Rangers Raging About?

And in a statement described as “furious”, Rangers question whether the treatment they receive is “being made even-handedly”.

Whilst reporting that “Jon Flanagan came together with the antagonistic Scott Brown at a corner”, the Daily Express faithfully reported the statement:

“Once again, there seems intent to change the decision of a referee in a match involving Rangers.

“There seems to be a steady erosion of respect for Scotland’s referees and the authority they are meant to enjoy under rule five of the laws of the game.

“The decisions of referees regarding facts connected with play are meant to be final, but referees are now routinely invited to change their decisions after a game has finished.

“It is particularly shocking that another Rangers player has been singled out for retrospective action and issued with a notice of complaint, while Jozo Simunovic, the Celtic player who used an elbow to fell Jermain Defoe, has escaped any kind of censure.

“Why did one incident escape punishment while the other is now deemed worthy of a red card?

“We cannot understand how these two incidents could be studied yet only one be considered worthy of punishment.

“It seems as if Rangers’ players are being held to a different code of conduct from players at other clubs.

“We shall vigorously defend Mr Flanagan and have also asked for full transparency on what matters are brought forward for retrospective action. Are those decisions being made even-handedly?”

PS – Helpfully it seems the SFA have leaked reported that a “clash” between Simunovic and Defoe was indeed reviewed, and dismissed. In other words, retrospective action was considered and dismissed.

So, concentrating on the Rule 200 referrals, do The Rangers have a point?

Rule 200 Precedents

This rule has not been invoked as many times as you may imagine given the publicity around them. Maybe this illustrates Scottish referees don’t miss much!

Indeed, according to the SFA’s Disciplinary Updates page (which is a hoot to read by the way), there have been 10 referrals under this rule in the SPFL Premier Division in 2018/19 (it is unknown how many were considered for referral and rejected as per the Simunovic / Defoe incident above).

Here they are:

What Does This Tell Us?

Right enough it is a small sample but there are a couple of clear trends.

1. It is The Rangers players who are most likely to be cited under Rule 200. 3 out of the 10 incidents “missed” were by Ibrox club players. No other side in the league has had a player cited more than once (and Celtic not at all).

“Once again, there seems intent to change the decision of a referee in a match involving Rangers”. Raging right there is! But, predictably, this rest of the missive misses the point spectacularly.

30% of the rule referrals mean that there were 3 matches in which The Rangers SHOULD have been playing with 10 players are were not. Why? Because the referee’s decision IS final in the context of the match. The match is not replayed 10 men versus 11. The benefit of wrongly playing with 11 players was realised – there is no retrospective removal of points.

The team that benefitted the most here is – The Rangers! The teams that suffered are their opponents (twice Celtic and once Aberdeen) who coincidentally are The Rangers closest challengers for the top positions in the league.

1. Out of 10 citations, remarkably, 6 were AGAINST Celtic’s opponents. No other side saw more than one referral in a match of their opponents. And what does this mean? It means that in 6 matches (16% of SPFL ties) Celtic SHOULD have had the advantage of playing against 10 men, and did not. Why? Because the referee’s decision IS final. See above. Hypothetically, if those 6 matches had resulted in draws rather than Celtic wins, Celtic would be 12 points worse off.

The Rangers are not one of the other four teams who should have played against 10 opponents but did not.

None of the teams who were the victims of “(A1) serious foul play, (A2) violent conduct, and (A3) spitting at an opponent or other person” benefitted from playing against a reduced opponent.

In 7 out of 10 Rule 200 referrals, the referee not seeing (sic) a serious rule breach has resulted in either penalisation of Celtic or advantage to The Rangers.

Clancy and Madden are responsible for 5 out of the 7 “not seen” incidents affecting the top two teams.

Summary

In the context of two teams battling for the title it is surprising that these missed incidents by referees overwhelmingly advantage one side in terms of the impact on the matches affected.

Isn’t it?

The Statement is right on the (Blue) nose in this respect:

“It seems as if Rangers’ (sic) players are being held to a different code of conduct from players at other clubs.”

But not in the way that it was intended.