Foul play – Referees and Celtic in Scottish Premiership this season

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The Celtic Star

·19. Mai 2025

Foul play – Referees and Celtic in Scottish Premiership this season

Trophy day turned out well in the end with James Forrest scoring a stat busting goal in the final seconds of the game…

James Forrest of Celtic scores during the Scottish Premiership match between Celtic and St Mirren at Celtic Park on May 17, 2025. (Photo by Ian MacNicol/Getty Images)

However, it wasn’t the only stat on display. The final game of the season pitted Celtic, with the lowest total fouls committed of any team, against the league’s most robust team, St. Mirren. According to the SPFL’s data, the Champions have conceded 357 fouls this season as opposed to 473 for the Saints, or should that be Sinners.

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When averaged, these figures are 9.4 and 12.4 fouls per game. 18 fouls were awarded during the game so slightly less than expected but it may or may not surprise you that 12 of these were awarded against Celtic and only 6 against the Saints. At one point, when the referee had blown for yet another foul against Celtic, James McFadden said the St. Mirren player had “conned” the referee.

To be honest, Mr. Dickinson was eager to penalise Celtic whenever an opponent threw themselves to the floor.

Photo by Stuart Wallace/Shutterstock referee David Dickinson

It’s only one game I hear you say and you cannot draw any conclusions from it. Absolutely correct, so let’s look at the whole 24/25 league season.

The data on fouls and possession in each game comes from the BBC match reports, and must be correct given the impartiality of that esteemed institution. The average figures for each team are derived from the SPFL’s published data.

The first thing to note is that during the league season Celtic committed more fouls than our opponents, 357 v 352. How is that possible? How can the cleanest team in the league concede more fouls than the opposition?

The reason is fairly obvious, in that based on their average figures for each per game, the opponents would be expected to concede something like 412 fouls, as opposed to an actual of 352.

Do the opposition clean up their act when they play Celtic or are the referees being conned? Also, are Celtic being penalised for fouls which referees tend to let the opposition get away with?. With an average Celtic possession of 74.5%, our opponents conceded a foul approximately every 7 minutes when they didn’t have the ball. By contrast, the corresponding figure for Celtic is 2.5 minutes. I believe there are double standards at play here and Willie Collum needs to have some hard words with the referees and perhaps a course on unconscious bias for some may be appropriate.

Let me pick out some highlights from the table.

Referee Nick Walsh Celtic v Hibernian, Scottish Gas Scottish Cup, Quarter Final, Celtic Park, – 09 March 2025 : Photo Stuart Wallace Shutterstock

Mr. Walsh managed to penalise us 18 times in the last Glasgow Derby and Mr. Clancy 14 times in a 3:0 home victory against Hearts. In both games, the referees weren’t blowing their whistle chaotically because the opponents were penalised less than their average figures.

Celtic v Hearts, Scottish Premiership 29/03/2025. Referee Kevin Clancy during match at Celtic Park on 29 March 2025. Photo Malcolm Mackenzie PSI

The same Mr. Clancy awarded 14 fouls against us during a home win versus Dundee United. The Tayside team, despite being the second most robust in the league, conceded only 4 fouls. Last one….Mr. MacDermid, in a 4:0 home win against St. Johnstone, penalised us 8 times and despite having only having 30% possession, the Perth Saints committed one foul the entire match.

I have done a similar analysis for our cup games this season and will post that separately; I didn’t want there to be too much data in one post. The results will surprise you, or maybe not!

Christopher Wotherspoon

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