So we know now that the referee for the weekend will be Willie Collum.
That’s the news of the day.
That he’s gotten this game should tell you how our club’s alleged conspiracy against officials, and the alleged pressure we’ve put on behind the scenes.
As this blog has said many times, in riposte to some of the paranoid nonsense on the Ibrox fan sites and elsewhere, our club has done virtually nothing to challenge refereeing or the people who get our games.
Collum, Madden and Beaton get our matches with depressing, and infuriating, regularity and let’s be honest, if we reformed this thing they wouldn’t get near us.
We are a better team than the home side. Definitely.
We have better players in every position on the park. Our squad is better than theirs. That’s reflected in the fact that we’re top right now and we’ve won the only trophy of the season so far.
We are challenging on three domestic fronts, and we look strong. I have no fears whatsoever about our ability to win a purely footballing contest.
But we are forever putting ourselves on the line, leaving too much to chance, by continuing to do nothing about refereeing. Ronny Deila was denied a treble in his first campaign by a blatant, scandalous, decision at Hampden.
Ange could be denied his own glory by officialdom.
Don’t, for one minute, underestimate the damage a referee could do in a single moment of a game.
Collum has made some of the most appalling decisions I’ve seen from a Grade One official … in failing to get big changes made to the SFA system we are very much putting ourselves in his hands.
On the day, it is up to us to do enough to negate any influence the officials might have.
This much I accept, and always have. But this is an extra hurdle that we shouldn’t have to overcome, and there will be times when it will be what costs us.
I sincerely hope this weekend isn’t one of them.
Our club should be making it clear over the next few days that we’re watching every decision this guy makes and that we’re not going to simply ignore an “honest mistake” like the one we saw in Dundee just over a week ago.
That’s the kind of pressure we need to put on; not for special favours, but for basic fairness.
A clean game, cause if it’s that then we’ll win it.
Are you trying to tell us you don’t have confidence in the ability of Wullie “Stevie Wonder’s eyes in the back of his heid” Collum? Shurely shome mishtake???
No matter who the MIB was going to be, there’ll be at least one penalty to Sevco….
Here it is in a nutshell for you all not one of our referee’s got selected to ref a game or even run the line at the last Euros championships.
Even nickel&dime countries get their refs selected for European championships and World Cup finals before any of our refs,that’s the standard of refs we have in charge of our games.
Yes, that’s independent confirmation that the standard of Category 1 Referees in Scotland is perceived to be simply, unacceptably poor by UEFA / FIFA.
And all Ange can do to put some pressure on the ref, is quote the old;
“I hope the referee will be fair / tough for this game…”
🙁
I much prefer Colum to the other two you mentioned James, At least Willie’s bad decisions are due to incompetence instead of being based on downright bigotry.
James, let’s not get too hung up on who the ref is on Sunday. If we go about it in the right way we will win regardless. After all Madhun was in charge at CP and he could do nothing about it as we horsed them. As far as I can see there are only five in the frame for this game. Madden Beaton Clancy Welsh and CollumUnlikely Madden as he had last game but, and I may live to regret saying this, of the rest Collum is the best option.
Like I said before, let’s do the business and make him irrelevant. Let’s not look for excuses before a ball has been kicked.
Does anyone keep a track of controversial decisions ? And do bent referees give or deny decisions in ‘other’ (not crucial to ‘them’ or ‘us’) games just to appear consistent ?
The best ref in Scotland is Nick Walsh. I’m still not sure whether that reflects well on him or badly on Scotland.