For as long as I’ve been watching football, not just Scottish football, defending teams will get the benefit of the doubt nine times out of ten when there is shirt pulling by both attackers and defenders at corners and free kicks into the box. I don’t like it and I don’t think it’s fair but that’s been the case, at least up until where VAR has been introduced in certain countries.
However on the flip side of that, going by the rules of the game, if there is any contact on an attacking player by a defender inside the box - out with a corner/free kick - then that will result in a penalty kick - Scott Sinclair in the 2017 LCF being the obvious example -. Likewise with any situation where a defender “has his hand in an unnatural position” as we saw when we played Rangers at FP last September will more often than not result in a penalty award.
I’m not saying that I think it’s right or even that I agree with it, but it is in the rules so if you want to blame anyone then blame those who make these ridiculous rules.
I think the ‘issue’ that alot of people are taking with the Rangers penalty on Wednesday night isn’t whether it was justified or not, it is simply that Rangers got a penalty, full stop. For as long as I can remember, any decision that goes Rangers way, especially a penalty, seems to result in 10x more hysteria and media scrutiny than a similar decision that goes the way of any other side (even Celtic) goes.
As has already been said, we ourselves were on the wrong side of a very harsh penalty decision on Wednesday night. And if that wasn’t enough our keeper saved the penalty only for the referee to - again very harshly - order a re-take. But I don’t see anyone claiming that that was down to some sort of cheating or broader conspiracies. Would that have been the case had it been Rangers, or even Celtic, that had benefited of such decisions???