Wings Over Scotland | Only An Excuse

Despite what you or we might think, in the eyes of the Scottish Football Association this ISN’T a pitch invasion. This is simply what a football match in progress looks like.

Because according to the absolutely extraordinary statement they’ve released this evening, that was game time. The clock was still running, nothing was being added to account for the fact that there were thousands of thugs rampaging across the field, and the game was still happening in that moment, until it was ended four seconds later.

It’s far from the only astonishing line in the statement.

There’s also the admission that the game ended because Hearts manager Derek McInnes, being advised by police before the game was over, feared for the safety of his players and didn’t want to risk carrying on.

That is, in the SFA’s view, if your team’s winning a game with a minute to go and you don’t want to take a chance on the other side scoring, you should not only pile onto the pitch but also do your active best to scare the living daylights out of their players, and the ref will just keep the clock ticking until time runs out, even though there isn’t even a ball any more.

(We imagine it’s proudly sitting on someone’s mantelpiece somewhere in the East End of Glasgow at the moment.)

The laws of the game are absolutely clear.

The referee CANNOT reduce the time declared by the fourth official, and he MUST add time for both goal celebrations and “interference by an outside agent”, ie thousands of thugs on the field of play. The SFA appear to have simply unilaterally overridden those global laws put in place by the International Football Association Board and said “Nah, it’s optional if there are a load of Neanderthal morons terrifying the players”.

It merits saying again: according to that SFA statement, this is not an interruption to play. This is a football match in normal progress, before full-time.

(Just two minutes later, incidentally, the pitch had been cleared and the last minute or so of the game could have been played.)

It is no small feat for the SFA to have limboed under even the incredibly low expectations bar we set for them. But hats off to them, they’ve done it with spades to spare.