CRAVEN'S SIN OF OMISSION

IT has been interesting today to see the "TannadiceGate" affair take another turn, with Steven Craven no longer being able to get away Scot fee with playing the victim.

In fact, when you go right back to the very beginning of this sad sorry mess, Craven was actually the villain for failing to call what he saw, honestly and without fear or favour. Craven's sin of omission!

Had he done so then there would have been the usual wee rammy, which would have blown itself out within 48 hours, apart from the usual moans of Celtic supporters, none of which any sensible person attaches any credibility to.

However, Craven did not act according to what he admits he saw, and what he concedes the decision should have been.... which was no penalty.

That much is crystal clear. When referee Dougie McDonald originally pointed to the spot, Craven immediately moved to take up the required assistant's position for a penalty kick.

He did this despite knowing - as he has stated clearly - that the challenge was fair, and that Celtic should most certainly not been given such an award.

All he had to do was stand his ground. No verbal communication into McDonald's earpiece was required. That he did not do that put McDonald, who was already doubting his original decision, in a difficult position.

Since then Craven, who accrording to more than one source is not popular with many of his senior colleagues, has whinged and whined and appeared to suffer from almost as much paranonia as those Celtic supporters who think everyone is out to get them.

He also appears to some to be the man responsible for the press leak of his resignation letter - something which, if it were the case would surely be a breach of trust.

For 48 hours - from the the outcome of Friday's appearance by SFA chief executive Stewart Regan - through Craven's claims in the Sunday Mail, he was portrayed as the poor put upon victim, with everyone ganging up to do him down.

He even attempted to embroil the Inverness Caley manager, Terry Butcher, a former Rangers and England captain, as some sort of surrogate character witness, something which smacked of the pathetic and the desperate.

Now McDonald has had his own say, at length and expressed in an interview with the highly experienced Jim Traynor. You can bet your bottom dollar Traynor, a skilled and tough interregator, would have given him a rough ride to get at the truth.

But the impression gained is of a decent enough guy who got caught up in trying to help Craven, for whom he may originally have felt a twinge of sympathy. But when he asked what he had to gain by going along with the original story, it was a question which is worth pondering.

In fact McDonald had nothing to gain. Maybe his biggest mistake was in misjugding the character of the man he was trying to help.

It was also interesting to read what the other linesman that day, Charlie Smith's view of Craven is, as he revealed to Michael Grant in the Herald.

Craven, according to the long serving and highly respected Smith, jumped for twenty pieces of silver.

That is a pretty damning indictment of Craven, and in the sort of colourful language we can all understand.

Then there is the chairman of the Scottish Football Senior Referees' Association, Martyn Cryans, whose support for McDonald can also be interpreted as a jaundiced view of Craven.

There also lurks in the background what many suspect is Celtic's unhappiness that the man in charge of Scotland's referees is Hugh Dallas. That is the elephant in the room.

One Parkhead chief executive, Allan McDonald , once laid himself open to ridicule by revealing how Celtic employed a psychologist to compile a report of Dallas' body language when he handled the Celtic shame game at Parkhead in May 1999 when Rangers won to clinch title.

McDonald's revelations came one midweek afternoon when reporters, who had been invited to a social occasion at Parkhead, took the chance to talk to the chief executive about this and that in the Parkhead boardroom.

The Celtic chief executive was happy to oblige, tape recorders were in evidence, and there was no attempt to trap McDonald, who freely volunteered his astonishing tale.

Which is why it is worth returning to Jim Traynor's fascinating interview with McDonald in the Record, and examine what the referee has to say about Craven and about Dallas - who was the best whistler Scotland has produced for a quarter of a century.

It was Dallas, ref McDonald reveals, who encouraged him to come clean over what actually happened, and the sequence of events relating to the penalty which never was.

McDonald says that Craven has never seen eye to eye with both Dallas and the SFA. He added that Craven had made it clear to come colleagues that he intended to resign and that maybe he saw this as a high profile way out.

A chance, in McDonald's words, to make hay at the same time, and to have a go at Dallas.

Of course Dallas is a highly skilled operator and hugely intelligent man. As well as being a tough cookie, whose physical bravery was there to see in that Celtic shame game, when despite being attacked and
wounded by Celtic fans, he carried on.

It would appear that the SFA's head of refereeing is already taking action to protect and preserve his reputation for integrity. M'Learned friends could well find this becomes a nice little earner.

Craven's original sin of omission could well come back to haunt him.