The Governing Body Must Not Allow Ibrox To Get Away With Targeting A Referee.

This week, officials are supposed to meet with the heads of the governing body to discuss Ibrox’s blatant attempt at referee intimidation. That meeting cannot pass without the SFA hitting the Ibrox club with a series of charges. Anything else and refs are fully entitled to be furious. So should the rest of Scottish football, starting with Celtic.

We’ve seen some truly backwards and bonkers stuff from the club across the city over the last couple of years, but nothing compares to what they did in the aftermath of our win at Celtic Park.

The attempt to force Willie Collum to quit was scandalous. Had the club done this behind the scenes that would have been bad enough especially as most people are fully aware of why they don’t like him. Had they announced it themselves, that would have been worse. But to give it to a fan media outlet looked an awful lot like whipping up the mob.

Officials have seen it for precisely that. They aren’t stupid. They know what it was that Ibrox tried to do here and they know that although Collum is a special case that if this is allowed to go unpunished then all bets are off and any club unhappy with a decision can essentially try the same thing. The SFA might dismiss the idea that clubs can pick and choose the officials they get, but if Ibrox is allowed to do something as blatant as this it’s license for clubs to do the same.

Everyone knows what this was. Nobody is stupid. The refereeing fraternity definitely knows what this was, and Collum either gets their full support or he will walk and if I were him, I’d be considering legal action against the SFA for constructive dismissal. What else is it if they violate their duty of care to him by not making sure that the Ibrox club is punished?

They have to be. We’ve said this countless times before and nothing has been done, but in this case, they are bang to rights and even their allies are running for cover. They have distorted the truth about the meetings, they’ve attempted to suggest that the governing body itself is covering something up and they’ve painting a bullseye on Collum’s back.

They cannot get away with that, or other clubs are entitled to ask why they’ve have officials and players and managers being sanctioned simply for questioning decisions … this was not questioning a decision but alleging that some sort of wrongdoing had occurred.

Furthermore, every club in the top flight knows that it might, at some point, come up against the Ibrox club whilst Collum has the whistle. What are they supposed to make of it if he gives a contentious decision against them? Can they believe that he would have given it the other way if the SFA effectively hangs him out to dry here?

This game will just have to live with Ibrox’s lack of faith in this guy, but you cannot allow other clubs to suffer a similar loss of faith because the SFA is too scared to stand by their man in an appropriate manner.

These are tactics we cannot have clubs adopting, it’s as simple as that, and the only way to make sure that they don’t is to impose meaningful sanctions on the club which has attempted to. And it goes beyond Collum; there’s no telling what this will do to refs as a whole if their club is allowed to do this and get away with it. Who will want to give a decision against Ibrox in the future, knowing the SFA won’t have your back if they turn the guns on you?

This shouldn’t even be a debate, and it shouldn’t take a blog to say it. If the SFA does not protect its refs by sanctioning Ibrox the game here – all of it – will pay a high price for that failure both moral and otherwise.