If VAR’s “Full Time Officials” Means Real Reform Celtic Should Welcome The Change.

Yesterday, the story broke that club concerns over VAR are forcing the powers-that-be to consider a radical change to the system; full-time VAR officials. The small print will have to be scoured for any signs that this will make matters worse, but if these guys are coming from outside of the SFA – outside of Scotland one would prefer – Celtic should be all for it.

The problem here is not with the technology but those operating it.

This we already know.

If we’re taking a step towards remedying that situation, then why not support it? But it will depend on the personnel. Standards in Scotland have been abysmal for as long as I’ve been watching the game, but never so bad as right now.

So even bringing in “veterans” won’t cure the nagging feeling that all we’re doing is tinkering around the edges and paying lip service to the idea of reform. If we’re going to have reforms they need to be real. If change is coming it has to be meaningful.

And that means breaking the link between what the SPFL needs and what the SFA wants to give them. The best proposal, by far, that I’ve heard on the subject of reform of refereeing is the idea of having a National Referees Service, perhaps funded, in part, by government grants and in part by sponsorship, but which is essentially a business whose function is to train officials for the use of football clubs here and elsewhere.

The SPFL would have a choice whether to use these people – accredited, transparent, accountable and on good salaries – or to go with the bog-standard garbage we put up with at the moment. I’m not against the idea of full-time officials, but at the risk of sounding like a Blairite, if they want more money, the conditions of their employment need to radically change.

No more hiding. No more thinking that they can turn in abysmal performances week in week out without consequences.

Declare their allegiances, on pain of suspension if they’re caught lying.

Push them to do better. To think more carefully.

To justify every call that they make, in a way that makes sense, and grade them on it and put that information where the football public can see it. This is no longer a radical departure from the norm. In other fields, in other industries, this is the norm. Managers are judged on the league table and can lose their jobs for it. Why not make refs similarly accountable?

We’re in a place now, finally, where everyone agrees that we need to make big changes because what we’ve witnessed since VAR was introduced is a searing indictment of our officials and the SFA itself. Anyone standing in the way of those changes ought to be made to explain precisely what their resistance to reform is based on.

The football watching public deserves nothing less.