Last week a couple of interesting, apparently unrelated, things happened which I was going to comment on at the time before other things got in the way.
In the first of them, The Daily Record, amidst Motherwell’s fury over another couple of baffling refereeing decisions, asked Hugh Dallas to adjudicate on the manner.
I find that funny in a week where Clive Tyldsley was booted off Soccer Aid after slagging overweight players that The Record thought it was a good idea to ask a man sacked for far worse to give an opinion on anything. Dallas’ career as a ref in Scotland ended in disgrace.
That he went on to do stuff at UEFA shows how corrupt that organisation is, nothing more.
He should not be legitimised in this country in any way, shape or form. We tolerate far more of this kind of nonsense than we should.
What he did is a matter of record; he is a bigot.
I have always believed that his tenure as head of refereeing in this country inflicted on our game men of a similar mind-set. Only someone with no interest in looking could deny that there might well be something to see. The Record’s decision to feature him came in the same week that Craig Levein told Scottish football straight that there is.
Levein is a gutless individual.
We’ve all known this. His comments about how a ref once approached him prior to a high-profile game and told him, “You’re getting nothing today,” would have been far more interesting and useful to the game had he shown some bottle and actually named names.
The revelation that some Scottish refs are biased is no surprise whatsoever to any of us who watch the game here and know its politics … but here was a man who has managed both club teams and the national team, with insider knowledge, and the opportunity to blow the lid off the whole can of worms and spark the debate that needs to happen … and he didn’t.
I daresay Levein isn’t the only person in our game who knows who the biased refs are.
Others will be well aware of it, and some of them are probably still working as managers.
They are pure fools for continuing to operate in an environment where there is open cheating. Doubtless, they are the same people who complain, bitterly, when decisions go against them … but if they are aware that the rot starts at the top they have no business moaning about it.
If there are biased refs in Scottish football, we should all want to know who they are and where their biases lean.
I don’t want to be the beneficiary of a corrupt decision any more than I want to be on the pointy end of one.
I think we know how unlikely it is that we’ve ever suffered the shame of the former. We most certainly endure the privations of the latter.
Maybe we wouldn’t have to – maybe no-one would have to – if more people were willing to tell what they know.
Levein could have done us a real service, rather than merely doing a self-pitying interview which accomplished absolutely nothing.
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