If Scottish Football Has Any Integrity Celtic Must Be Stripped of Their Title

Heart of Midlothian – ‘Hearts’ – are the Scottish Premier League Champions. Not the moral champions, not the ‘people’s champions’, I mean the actual champions. Or, at the very, very least, they should be given the chance, via a replay of their title decider against Celtic, to become champions. If the Scottish Professional Football League (SPFL) follows its own rules, that is.

Celtic were leading 3-1 last Saturday and on course to claim their 56th title, when their fans invaded the pitch. There were about 30 seconds to go of the additional eight minutes signalled by the fourth official. The correct procedure in this circumstance is for the game to be stopped, the pitch cleared, and the remaining time played out (as happened recently in the Rochdale vs York City National League title decider, where it took six minutes to restart the game). Or the match can be abandoned.

But at Parkhead on Saturday, referee Don Robertson simply ended the game 30 seconds early. With stewards and police struggling to contain the situation, Robertson terminated play. The Hearts players, some of whom it is alleged had been physically attacked, made a hasty exit, not just from the pitch, but from the stadium, without fulfilling media obligations or even showering. Celtic were crowned champions on the pitch.

Here is the problem: referees cannot simply end the game early. The exact wording of the law is “additional time may be added but not reduced”. If a referee is forced to curtail a match before time, for whatever reason (weather, floodlight failure, medical emergency, violence) the game has not been ended but abandoned. 

Thus, Celtic vs Hearts was not ended naturally, but abandoned, unnaturally, due to a pitch invasion by home fans. According to SPFL rules, the consequence of that is a victory for the opposition, or a replay. Given the violent nature of the pitch invasion, the former option seems more just. Celtic should be stripped of their title and it should be awarded to Hearts. 

Let’s deal quickly with the counter-arguments. “It was only 30 seconds. What does it matter?” Firstly, it wasn’t only 30 seconds, it was 30 seconds plus whatever time had been accrued during the eight minutes played after the 90. Going on past precedent, that would likely mean there was at least a minute and a half, and perhaps longer. Celtic manager Martin O’Neil stated in the post match press conference that the fourth official had told him there was “about a minute to go” when the game was called.

As to whether it matters from a competitive viewpoint, if a week is a long time in politics, then a couple of minutes is an eternity in football. Scotland turned round a 1-0 deficit in Oslo to beat Norway 1-2 in a Euro qualifier in 2023 in 141 seconds; Man Utd did the same thing in the Champions League final of 1999, in a similar time frame, and Man City won the 2011-12 English Premiership with two injury time goals scored in the space of two minutes and five seconds.

But any speculation about what might have happened had the brief time remaining been played is entirely irrelevant. This isn’t football down the park with jumpers for posts, ‘next goal’s the winner’ and ‘let’s call it quits lads, it’s getting dark’. This is the elite end of the professional game in the UK, where football originated and where the laws of the game were first drawn up. You can’t just make up the rules as you go along.

Of course, it would help if we had a precedent. And as luck would have it, we do. From around a week ago. The derby between Slavia Prague and Sparta Prague in the Czech Republic was abandoned due to a pitch invasion from home fans. Slavia forfeited the game, were fined £357,000 and ordered to play their next four home games behind closed doors. The two events were nearly identical. Why should this game have a different outcome?

Hearts have protested about the treatment of their team and staff and the “menacing atmosphere” they had to endure. They have also called for “the strongest possible action to protect player safety and the integrity of the Scottish game”. The last part of that sentence may be a coded signal that they do not accept the result and are putting the SPFL on notice. The police are investigating the allegations of assault.

In response, the SFPL has insisted the game was ended appropriately and have tweeted its congratulations to Celtic. The league has stressed that the referee said the game was ended, not abandoned, and it has not been recorded as such. A report will be submitted, but I’d be surprised if the SPFL deviates from this position now.

Which is disturbing, because If nothing happens about this the likeliest reasons for inaction are apathy and fear. To date, few commentators have raised the kind of objections necessary to put much pressure on the authorities. Independence blogger Stu Campbell has written a brilliant, excoriating piece and former Talk Radio presenter Mike Graham has weighed in strongly, as has journalist and social media influence James Melville.

But that’s about it. From the rest of Scotland, a resigned shoulder shrug and a turning away; a reaction one suspects, prompted somewhat at least, by fear. It’s a fear that pervades Scottish society well beyond the sporting realm these days, the fear of confronting entrenched power, power that often manifests itself aggressively and is rarely, if ever, held to account. 

It was surely that kind of fear that induced the referee to call the game and get everyone off the park as quickly as possible, as wild eyed, manically aggressive men rushed towards him. 

It was that kind of fear that made the Hearts players and staff leave the stadium in haste and made their few supporters in the stadium fear for their lives. 

It’s a fear that may even have influenced Andrew Dallas, consciously or unconsciously, when he had to make his crucial penalty decision in the game versus Motherwell last week. 

One imagines that fear probably animates the SPFL too – the fear of alienating Scotland’s richest and most powerful club. There is still time for the authorities to do the right thing, but if the SPFL succumbs to that fear and compromises (a token fine? a slap on the wrist?) then a terrible precedent will have been set.

Then it will not only be Celtic vs Hearts that was abandoned, but all hope of justice in Scottish football. And that dismal outcome would say much about the state of modern Scotland.

Philip Patrick is a freelance journalist.