John Beaton slammed for ‘dreadful’ Celtic decisions vs Aberdeen

John Beaton is a referee who is much-maligned by the Celtic supporters.

Beaton is known for being a Rangers fan so his performances whenever officiating any Celtic fixtures will always come under intense scrutiny.

As Beaton took charge of Celtic’s win over Aberdeen, the controversial referee has been slammed for the decisions he made against the Parkhead club up at Pittodrie.

And his performance has been labelled as ‘dreadful’ by ACSOM’s Paul John Dykes.

John Beaton’s ‘dreadful officiating performance’ in Celtic’s Aberdeen win

John Beaton is always going to be criticised by Celtic supporters whenever he gets decisions wrong, and rightfully so.

However, it was what he didn’t do against Aberdeen that had Paul John really agitated.

Paul John said on A Celtic State of Mind, “I’m going to start off about a lot of the decisions that were made or not against Aberdeen at the weekend.

“I called it a dreadful officiating performance, and a big part of that was, yes, the handball that was right in front of him.

“Yes, the 10 fouls by Aberdeen players that resulted in one booking, and then Reo [Hatate] and Callum McGregor get a booking a piece on the 73rd minute for the same fouls that had been getting made against us.

“But also the way that we stood up to that challenge, and we showed that a little bit of nastiness, a little bit of aggression because Aberdeen have become that team.

“I don’t know if they play like that against other sides. I only watch them against Celtic every time we play them, they’re hammer throwers.”

“Ten fouls against Celtic players, resulting in one yellow card. And then obviously there was a couple of similar fouls by Reo Hatate and Callum McGregor, both of them get booked in the same movement.”

John Beaton’s Celtic penalty decision vs Aberdeen

There was a Celtic penalty decision against Aberdeen that Beaton and his officiating team (including VAR) missed and that Sky Sports never spoke about either.

And Paul John shares how a former FIFA referee explained why Celtic should not have been awarded the spot-kick.

Paul John continued, “The other one, though there’s been a bit of digging done, so Paddy Sinat over at 67 Hail Hail, he has contacted an ex-referee about the Shinnie incident, which, by the way, there was no replays of that on the live footage by Sky Sports.

“It was picked up by Gerry McCulloch and Celtic TV. No one else mentioned it on any of the other coverage. So Paddy’s done his digging on 67 Hail Hail.

“He spoke to ex FIFA referee, Mark Clattenburg, who said the following, ‘Celtic should not have been awarded the penalty. The ball was handled accidentally in the act of breaking his fall’.

“So the incident itself, that Sean Connelly spoke about at the weekend was there was a moment where Alistair Johnston was slide-tackling, and his flailing arm, touched the ball on the deck.

“And Sean said, from a referee’s perspective, what Shinnie did was the same, so he was breaking his fall.”

It’s only two games in, one for Beaton in charge of Celtic and SFA referee is already causing controversy.

It’s going to be a long season for Celtic fans if this is the standard of refereeing we need to put up with and as for Beaton, well, his card is already marked.