Radio Scotland really does enjoy embarrassing itself, doesn’t it?
Today Gordon Smith is in the news after going on their football show and “proposing” a VAR appeals system.
The proposal itself is utterly moronic and nonsensical; both clubs in a match would get two chances to recommend a decision be looked at by VAR and if one resulted in a change, they would get another “turn.”
In theory, then, teams could demand VAR review everything that happened in a game with which they disagreed as long as refs overturned their own on-field decisions.
Christ’s sake, hasn’t this technology done enough damage without this goon trying to make it worse? Gordon Smith is a former SFA chief executive, which only demonstrates how backward and bent their own decision making has been. The SFA advertised that post at the time and then hired a guy who did not tick a single box of the criteria for applying.
No sooner was he in the job, but a book came out in which he had made the preposterous claim that the SFA was historically biased against Rangers. He offered not one scintilla of proof for this, and from 2007-2010 he ran the organisation without ever being asked to do so. When he quit, for “personal reasons” he was in the firing line for a variety of controversies and there has always been talk that he was on the verge of being sacked.
Here’s the one thing nobody ever says; he was the CEO at Hampden during the final years when the Ibrox club was operating its EBT scheme. He certainly knew more than he has ever let on, more than he has ever been asked about.
His part in that whole scandal has been airbrushed out of the narrative except by sites like this, which continue to pose the questions that the media point blank refuses to ask him. He later went on to work for Craig Whyte and holds the historic record of being the last Rangers chief executive.
Someone whose judgement and character are so questionable should not be feted by the national broadcaster, except in some footballing banana republic, which I suppose is how some people might consider our game. He is a national disgrace.
But what made this weekend’s intervention from him all the more ridiculous is that this is the second time he’s claimed that he essentially invented VAR. The claim is nonsensical. A FIFA article on this tells us that VAR was the brainchild of Dutch officials and pioneered in a program called Referee 2.0. Smith has been getting away with this for years.
He first made this claim back in 2019, and guess what? It was in relation to a game where we’d beaten the Ibrox club and he thought they should have got big decisions they didn’t.
Smith was doing nothing more than banging the drum on behalf of his favourite club on both of these occasions. You barely hear of this idiot unless he’s doing that.
But it absurd to hear him repeating this dire claim that he is responsible for video assisted referees. He claims to have brought it up at a FIFA working group back in 2008, a year before the Dutch officials actually proposed it and got the go-ahead to test out the idea.
Even if this actually happened, which I have my doubts about, if Smith thinks that an off-hand remark at some backroom talking shop means he invented something he needs a lie down in a dark room.
Because I very much doubt that the idea was new even then.
People have been talking about something like VAR since games were first recorded for TV., so this daft claim from Smith is like one of the thousands of people in between Leonardo Da Vinci and the Wright Brothers claiming to have invented flying because they had a brief discussion about it a hundred years before the first piloted aircraft got off the ground.
You can tell the state of a game by the people it considers its elder statesmen. When The Kaiser died recently, all of German football was in mourning. That was a player, a manager, a director, a visionary, an example of greatness in the game. He was an icon of club and country and a fantastic administrator to boot. We get people like this.
Honestly, Smith only ever emerges when he can have a pop at officials who have given decisions in favour of Celtic. He is one of the bitterest men in Scottish football and completely unable to be in the least bit objective. His judgement is hilariously flawed; he hired both George Burley and Craig Levein for the Scotland job and was last man standing in the Whyte regime at Ibrox … and yet he’s supposed to be a voice we take seriously and respect?
Give me a break. This is why Scottish football is a mess.
This clown co commentates on the rangers tv along with Tom miller tells you all you need to know about that bigot.
Gordon “I know nothing about anything!” Smith?
The guy who took a Director role under Craig Whye, and then
rendered temporarily deaf, dumb and blind during this period?
Smith has no shame: there’s a rock missing him, I’m sure. 🙁
When I think of Gordon Smith (and it’s not very often at all, if ever), I only think of one thing. That miss in the FA Cup Final when he played for Brighton against Man Utd. That’s it. The biggest achievement in his life. Being a failure. Other than that, the man is an irrelevance.
I see statement united have went quiet on the VAR issue .
I wonder if the SFA/SPFL and the SMSM have told them to “shut up” . Because if they get the “transparency” they say they want. Those organisations can’t cheat or lie for them….. well not as easy…. It’s not like “the rangers” to agree with CELTIC we have been asking for transparency of VAR from the beginning “tynecastle”.
I’d be very surprised if VAR is with us more than another 2 seasons. The English hate it also. It’s a costly waste of time and is killing the game.
Smith is a d!ck.
What would allowing a one time review do in a game like the last Glasgow derby? That’s the real sticking point for the currants. They cannot get that the prior offside kills any option of a pen. Has anyone taken a more serious look at the Turnbull pen shout which was called offside, when seen again the commentator and Miller made a sound of ambiguity at least. But teams get on with it, except rangers.
If the rule is changed because you can challenge one time then the next narrative will be
when they have another worse decision later in the game but have used their life, rinse repeat. They will crave a system where reviews are done until rangers get their result.
Personally change the rules so if they claim an official is bent and dont want them to ref their matches, game into disrepute £100k fine.
Significant crowd trouble at a match like first Glasgow derby (without away fans), next home game behind closed doors.
Soon get the picture.
Smith who grew up in Kilwinning at a time when Catholics were banned from some local pubs ( indeed one establishment denied entry to anyone wearing green), once famously stated that in all his time there he never heard or witnessed any sectarian behaviour.
That’s the kind of creature we’re talking about here. Someone who would only be given the time of day in Scotland.
Aye, he’s a clown, a dangerous one, but a clown. Any word on the SFA going on strike to support Collum?
Everythin in that article right on the button about that clown. Never has and never will, be able tae hide his hate for our club either. Embarrassment every time he opens his mouth.
Was there not some hint of Financial Scandal around the time of his appointment to
either the SFA or the Real Rangers ?
As if the System was bailing out one of their ailing sons or favoured Brothers, if you get my drift.
Pretty sure there was but can’t remember the details just the sense that he was being taken care off.
As they do.
Radio Scotland – An embarrassment for sure and only worth a listen to when Celtic beat Sevco to hear their sorrow, pain and tears…
Jeez Smith – He’s just another Sevco cheerleader that was in a powerful position at The SFA –
Was there not another few of their ‘peepil’ in powerful positions there as well – A guy called Dickson springs to mind…
Ogilvie was another dishonest one as well – By fcuk there have been plenty of them for sure over the years –
There are some regrets I’ve had in life but one that I certainly don’t have is that I’ve NEVER paid a single penny to watch a Scotland game and when you see guys like Smith and their ilk all I can say is Thank God for that !
Wiggy Smith is a fantasist. In one of Tom English’s first interviews for Clyde Smith made outrageous claim after claim about things he instigated for the game and portrayed himself as a leading power in world football. Fantacism and narcissistic behaviour that went unchallenged. He is à total nitwit.
All of that ‘syrup’ glue Smith has been wearing and sniffing on his napper over the decades is finally taking its toll on his senses . Don’t you remember the time when Celtic was13 points clear in the title race back in the day and Smith was trying to explain to the Sportscene host that if the Rangers had won this and that game ,Celtic would have dropped points here and there ,blahdy ,blah ,bollox , then the Rangers would have been one point in the lead at the top …utter piffle for which he was handsomely paid by the BBC in Scotland using other people’s money ! Where have I heard that before ….?
A bitter and twisted wee man. I remember watching Scotland lose to Italy in a qualifier for (I think) Euro 2008 when the only goal came late on when that muppet Hutton went to ground very easily (as indeed he’d been doing for the whole game) only on this occasion the ref didn’t give the free kick and it led to the Italy’s winner. Gordon “the referee is always correct” Smith was incandescent and suggesting bias on the part of the referee and demanding an enquiry…. Remember thinking at the time “oh, so these things don’t ’balance themselves out’ then, eh gordon?”. He may even have got into hot water with UEFA for it too.
As for his nonsensical suggestion of having given the world VAR, anyone who watched a rugby match from the mid 90s onwards will have seen either the ‘Video Referee’ (League) or the ‘Television Match Official’ (Union) being used. VAR wasnt ‘invented’ by anybody, it was a rugby innovation imported and adapted to football. Even his “two challenges” proposal is from tennis!! It’s difficult to take such an individual seriously in any way. He is more likely to be remembered for his glaring miss in the FA Cup Final than anything else, although the tragi-comic tabloid soap opera regarding his daughter and her, ahem, “involvement” with Logan Baily suggested that strong cognitive bandwidth ain’t a family trait….
Great work, James. Keep up the pressure on these aged imbeciles. The SFA house of cards could actually collapse and the blazer brigade finally dumped. Oh for a modern proactive group of qualified, neutral professionals running the game!
Have to disagree with how var has ruined the game! It is the officials that are being allowed to ruin it. Do we really want to go back to the honest mistakes culture?