WE all know shirt-pulling is an offence. It is not allowed within the remit of the game of football and is not to be encouraged.
So, just have a look again at this image of Filipe Jota and Marcus Fraser from Celtic’s 5-1 win over St Mirren in Paisley on Sunday.
This incident occurred in the second-half with the Portuguese winger attempting to launch a raid on the left flank. It’s a one v one situation and the smart money would be on the Hoops box of tricks being successful as he embarked upon his mission.
GETTING SHIRTY…St Mirren defender Marcus Fraser takes a novel approach to curbing the menace of Filipe Jota.
However, it’s no easy task when your direct opponent decides to try to hamper your progress by pulling your jersey over your head when you are in full flight.
Clearly a foul and a free-kick to Celtic? Right? Not in the eyes of referee David Dickinson who rather remarkably saw nothing untoward with the Saints player’s attempt at an impromptu premature shirt exchange with the Celtic forward.
No infringement, said the match official to the resounding cheers of some of the nearby home fans whose appreciation of the finer things of the beautiful game is sandwiched in between zero and zilch.
GOING IN…Filipe Jota gets a gound-level view of his equalising goal as he prods the ball behind St Mirren keeper Trevor Carson with Alex Gogic for company.
ON THE SPOT…striker Oh Hyeon-gyu slots in Celtic’s fifth goal from a penalty-kick after a VAR-induced award.
Kismet being what it is, Dickinson again missed a blatant shirt grab from Alex Gogic on Oh Hyeon-gyu later in the encounter, but was instructed by VAR assistant Andrew Dallas to have another look at the incident on the trackside monitor.
Lo and behold, the penny dropped with the whistler who came to the eventual conclusion that, like the aforementioned Fraser, the Paisley back-four operator wanted to test the strength of fabric of the away team’s third kit.
The penalty-kick was awarded and, of course, the South Korean striker slotted his first Premiership goal for the club under the diving Trevor Carson to bring down the curtain on a five-star show from the champions.
You could say it was a case of grab and smash.
