And there we have it.
They aren’t stupid, they might come across as mad conspiracy theorists but, at the end of the day, they have just won the first trophy of the season because of the pressure that they constantly apply to referees.
John Beaton was under the spotlight a few weeks ago because he had the audacity to give Rangers a penalty against Hibs which won us all three points, his compliance in the league cup final between the same team and Celtic should put to bed any nonsense about officials and how they are all out to get them.
Two questionable goals were one thing but to not give a penalty in the dying minutes against Carl Starfelt for the most blatant push on Ryan Porteous you will ever see was shocking. Beaton had a split second to decide what impact giving it against Celtic would have on him and his life outside of football and he chose the easy option – who can blame him?
When you have pundits like Chris Sutton and John Hartson inviting a pile on for decisions that are correct, it doesn’t take a genius to work out if anything even remotely dodgy went against them just now, it’s an almost weekly occurrence.
It’s not a conspiracy, the ref’s aren’t corrupt – they are human.
They will make mistakes and get things wrong, but more has to be done about the scrutiny that the media is putting them under – pundits, newspapers and radio shows should be held to account for their behaviour, fans will always moan about refs, it’s what we do, but people who are paid for their opinions should be more responsible.