Generations of the Irish community in Scotland—particularly those who take a close interest in football—have alleged that one of the most glaring manifestations of anti-Irish sentiment has emerged on the football field. Over many decades, supporters of Celtic have cried foul over what they have seen as bias against their team, an attempt to keep an Irish club down at the expense of others. In the absence of hard data, for many years the cycle of dubious decisions drawing attention to the issue before quickly drifting from view allowed the grievances to be dismissed only as ‘paranoia’ or the ramblings of fringe theorists. Now, in an age detailed and readily available statistics from every match, and instant footage of incidents from multiple angles, the old charges of supporters can be scrutinised in a new way. Here The Irish Voice invites Alan Morrison to break down what he identifies as inexplicable deviations from what should be the normal refereeing outcomes in Scotland.
FROM January 18, 2022, until January 2, 2024, Rangers did not concede a penalty in the Scottish Professional Football League (SPFL) Premiership. The handball awarded against John Souttar of Rangers and to Kilmarnock was the first penalty the Glasgow side had been penalised for in 75 league games. John Beaton, an active Scottish referee, called this run ‘a statistical anomaly that cannot be explained.’ Graham Spiers a respected Scottish football journalist stated on his Press Box podcast that the run was ‘bizarre.’ In the Press and Journal of December 2, 2023, Richard Gordon asked: “Can that [the Rangers penalty-less run] remarkable statistic be explained?”
This run followed a similar 44-league game run without a penalty against from December 30, 2019 to April 20, 2021. This feature will explore a wider data set of refereeing outcomes in SPFL Premiership-level football and attempt to ascertain if there are any patterns in the decision-making.
Note that refereeing services in Scotland are the sole domain of the Scottish FA. The SFA recruits, trains, develops, assigns, monitors, assesses, and promotes/demotes referees for the provision of their services to the SPFL. Crawford Allan was appointed Head of Refereeing Operations at the Scottish Football Association (SFA) on January 13, 2020.
The Rangers penalties against run
Rangers’ run of 75 league matches without conceding a penalty was remarkable in that Video Assistant Referee (VAR) processes were introduced on October 21st, 2022, nine months into this almost two-year streak. Before use of VAR processes, there was an average of 1.97 (2020-21) and 1.68 (2021-22) penalties awarded in each set of fixtures (above).
Last season, when VAR was introduced part way through, the number of penalties jumped up to 2.42 per game week. This season, roughly halfway through, that was reduced to 2.16 per game week but still at a higher rate than pre-VAR levels. At a time when most clubs were seeing an increase in penalties awarded under the all-seeing eye of VAR, Rangers managed to avoid jeopardy in their penalty area.
There have been other significant runs of matches across Europe where a single club has avoided conceding a penalty as shown in this table provided by X account @scotlandscoeff1 (above).
Only one of these runs has been achieved with VAR in operation—Liverpool in 2022. The red numbers indicate the number of penalties awarded to that side during those runs. So, although Racing Club Lens of France went 103 matches without concession, they received only seven penalties in their favour. Rangers have received 24. No club in this table has received more penalties simultaneous to a barren run of concessions. The closest is Barcelona (21) whose run ran from 2016 to 2018. The club are under formal investigation for suspected bribery of referees over this period. Most major European leagues now have VAR operational. In the top 20 leagues by UEFA ranking, no other club failed to have a penalty awarded against them in the 2022-23 season. Even more staggering is the sheer size of the penalty differential gap that Rangers has versus every other club in the SPFL. That is, the difference between penalties awarded and conceded.
The following is attributed to @JBLuvsCeltic on the X platform. It covers a period starting in the 2018-19 season where Celtic were heavily dominant (above).
Rangers had 46 more penalties awarded than conceded. The next highest was the dominant Celtic on 21. Based on the Z-Score of the Margins, there is one statistically significant outlier. The Rangers Z-Score (-2.77) is over two standard deviations from the mean. Penalties conceded is, however, just one data point. And long runs without concession do occur. How many penalties should Rangers have conceded?
Independent expert assessment of big calls
The Yorkshire Whistler is an active English FA-trained professional referee with no interest in Scottish football. His analysis of the big calls affecting Celtic and Rangers has been operational over the periods of the Rangers’ run without conceding a penalty. Based on his expert and neutral judgement, Rangers should have conceded six penalties since the start of the 2021-22 season (above).
Ironically, the Yorkshire Whistler deemed the penalty Rangers did get awarded on January 18, 2022, as being incorrect for a foul by Alfredo Morelos. However, referee Kevin Clancy failed to award a penalty to Aberdeen for a foul by goalkeeper Allan McGregor on Ryan Hedges. In addition to the six penalties that should have been awarded against Rangers in this period, The Yorkshire Whistler opines that a further five were incorrectly awarded to Rangers, but also four should have been awarded to Rangers but were not.
Overall, the Yorkshire Whistler has reviewed all the big calls from matches involving Celtic and Rangers over two completed and one-half seasons. Based on the expected points won or lost through either benefitting or being penalised by a wrong call, the overall summary can be seen here (above).
Overall Celtic have been penalised by an estimated 8.04 expected points over this period whilst Rangers have benefitted from erroneous calls by 5.24 expected points. That is a swing of 13.28 estimated expected points Celtic have potentially been penalised for relative to their main rivals because of incorrect decisions. The last two league titles have been won by only four and seven points respectively. Currently, there is one point separating the top two.
Likelihood of penalty awards
We’ve considered whether the penalty, and other big calls, were correct or not during the last two and a half seasons an independent expert has been running the rule over the video evidence. But how many penalties could be considered ‘normal’ in the period in scope?
To do this I have used ‘Touches in the Opposition Box’ as a proxy for penalty opportunities. You cannot win a penalty without getting the ball into the opponent’s penalty area. This premise is supported by this article from the European Journal of Sport Science: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/ 236913687_Analysis_of_entries_into_the_penalty_area_as_a_performance_indicator_in_soccer.
For this analysis, I recorded all touches in the box for and against each Premiership side between 2020-21 and 2nd January 2024 of the current season. I then calculated how many touches in the box each team and their opponents have per penalty awarded and conceded.
Penalties conceded
Here are the results for penalties conceded (above). On average in the SPFL Premiership, teams concede a penalty every 147 times their opponent has possession of the ball in their penalty box. Champions Celtic concede a penalty every 142 times their opponents enter their penalty area.
The major outlier in this sample is Rangers. The opposition needs to get into the Rangers penalty area 372 times on average before a penalty is awarded. With a Z-Score of -2.68, this is outside the 95 per cent deviation from the mean and is therefore statistically significant and is the only result to be so. This suggests that Rangers have substantially better defenders than the rest of the league in that they are incredibly careful in not committing fouls in the penalty area. Yet despite this, Celtic have conceded 100 goals over the period in question and Rangers 92, very similar.
We then look at how many times each team must get into the opponent’s penalty area to win a penalty (above).
Rangers achieve a penalty on average every 147 entries into the opposition penalty area, the league average. What is curious, however, is that the only statistically significant outlier, with a Z-Score of -2.28 is perennial Champions and highly dominant Celtic. Celtic must, on average, get into the opposition penalty area 203 times before converting that possession into a penalty. The other teams that struggle in this regard are all those who are normally near the foot of the table such as Ross County, St Johnstone and Kilmarnock. None are as statistically significant an outlier as Celtic, however. This is despite Celtic having a more potent attack during this period scoring 337 goals to Rangers 306.
Impact of penalties
I have established whether awards were correct or not and shown how penalty awards relate to a team’s ability to get into the opposition box.
In terms of the penalties awarded, I would expect the impact in terms of expected points given the time of the penalty and the score at that time to be broadly similar between Celtic and Rangers given their dominance over the rest of the league.
I analysed the 275 penalties awarded in the 2020-21 to 2023-24 seasons to date. Note that Hamilton Academical and Dundee are excluded from the summaries due to only being in the league for single full seasons. All teams who have been in the league for three of the four seasons under review are included in the results.
Based on the time the penalty was awarded and the score at the time, Rangers had the highest positive xPts from penalty awards with 18.57 from their 39 penalties. Celtic were next on 13.56. Rangers also had the least expected impact from penalties conceded with 3.27 expected points being estimated to be lost. St Johnstone were second with 7.61 and Celtic fourth with 8.38. In terms of the overall differentials in expected points between those awarded and conceded (above).
Rangers over 15 xPts benefit from penalty awards overall are 2.95 times that of second-placed Celtic despite the Hoops winning two of the three titles in the seasons completed. Indeed, the Z-Score of -2.61 indicates that the Rangers’ score is outside the 95th percentile and is statistically significant, the only score in this analysis to be so.
The penalties Rangers get in their favour are significantly more impactful (beneficial) than those awarded to the rest of the league. I would expect that in terms of when penalties are awarded, there would be little difference between Celtic and Rangers as regards the average minute of the game of each award for and against. Here is a comparison of the average time in the match Celtic and Rangers are awarded and concede penalties (above).
On average. Celtic get awarded a penalty in the 59th minute yet Rangers’ average is the 48th minute—11 minutes earlier. The league average is the 53rd minute. On average Celtic’s opponents get awarded a penalty in the 45th minute, but Rangers don’t get penalised until the 67th minute—22 minutes later.
Scoring earlier means the potential benefit of a 0.77 xG shot arrives sooner. Football is a low-scoring sport and neither Celtic nor Rangers lose many games from winning positions. In the period under review, Celtic have drawn 10 matches from winning positions and lost just two (out of 136 matches). Rangers have drawn 10 also and lost just one (out of 134 matches). Therefore, the earlier the goal for, the better. The
differential between when teams are awarded and concede a penalty on average is (above).
Rangers, on average, receive a penalty 25 minutes earlier than they concede. Whereas Celtic, equally dominant in the league, receive a penalty 10 minutes later than they receive a penalty. The Z-Score for Rangers is -2.31 so beyond two standard deviations from the mean and highly statistically significant.
Red card differential
I would expect Celtic and Rangers to broadly receive and benefit from a similar number of red cards over the period under review. Here is the differential between the number of red cards awarded and conceded (above).
There appears to be a slight correlation between league position and differential in red cards awarded and conceded as we’d expect. Yet, by this measure, Rangers lead the way with a differential of 12 red cards more for their opponents than for themselves. Celtic’s differential is four. Rangers Z-Score is—2.07 meaning it is outside the 95th percentile and therefore statistically significant. No other result falls into this category.
Summary and impact of red cards and penalties
Bringing together the estimated impact of both red cards and penalties and extending the sample back to 2016-17 when Rangers achieved Premiership status. This compares the estimated expected points impact from all penalties and red cards awarded for and against Celtic and Rangers since 2016-17 (above).
From 2016-17 to the end of 2019-20 when a dominant Celtic easily won four league titles, the total expected points differential saw Celtic have a total of 9.27 xPts ‘benefit’ from cards and penalties awarded/conceded and Rangers 1.19 xPts. In this period Celtic achieved 73 more league points than Rangers.
Something changed from 2020-21 onwards as a clear pattern emerged as Rangers’ total expected points estimate rose to 19.2 in those three and a half campaigns whilst Celtic’s total expected points is 5.72. The impact of penalties and red cards awarded since 2020-21 is estimated to be 3.36 times larger for the Rangers (one title) than Celtic (two titles and leading in the third).
Conclusion
The Rangers’ sagas of not conceding a penalty were remarkable and difficult to explain.
Rangers could not be considered a suffocatingly dominant side over the rest of their league like, for example, Paris Saint-Germain in France and Bayern Munich in Germany.
Rangers have seen rivals Celtic win 12 of the last 13 available Premiership titles and six out of the seven since they achieved status as a top flight club. If anything, it is Celtic that one might expect to have dominance in decision-making given superior possession (average 68 percent possession to 62 percent by Rangers) and attacking capabilities.
Furthermore, many criticise Scottish referees, but if the part-time officials overseeing full-time professionals are merely incompetent, then decision-making anomalies should have no discernible pattern. All clubs should suffer equally from incompetence over a large sample size.
However, when considering the wider data sets relevant to refereeing performance:
Awarding of penalties
Distribution of red cards
Impact of red cards and penalties
Independent expert assessment of big calls
there appears to be statistically significant evidence across each data set of a pattern of assistance for one club over all the others from the SFA referees in the Scottish Premiership. And that is to Rangers.
The pattern is not of favour towards the ‘big clubs,’ nor is it an ‘Old Firm’ leaning. It is favourable decision-making for one club.
In particular, the awarding, or not, of penalties seems to have a distinctly one-sided pattern. Specifically, Rangers seem to disproportionately avoid the jeopardy a penalty brings when awarded against you in football. Football is a low-scoring sport. Some argue penalties are disproportionately impactful to the penalised side. This is covered in The Athletic and by this piece in Sabermetric Research: http://blog.philbirnbaum.com /2012/07/why-are-soccer-penalties-so-harsh.html.
The SFA appears to have a refereeing problem and it is recommended the next steps are to establish why this is, and then what can be done about it.
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