Today, or so we were told, the refs will meet with the Hampden top brass to discuss the issues coming out of the match with the Ibrox club. By the close of business they should be making a statement to update the rest of us on what is going on.
Knowing the SFA’s penchant for secrecy they might not bother.
But that would only risk making a bad situation worse. And this is, whether the noise has died down or not, a very bad situation indeed. This is an issue of credibility, and of sporting integrity.
I find it amazing that we are here talking about sporting integrity in this context. But it’s a fact nonetheless.
If their club is allowed to get away with intimidating an official in this manner then we’re on a descent towards anarchy. And it’s not just that they did it, but the way in which they did it, the sneaky, underhanded and actually quite dangerous method that they chose, which presents the real risks, not only to Collum but to the game.
Collum will already feel under pressure not to award decisions against them. What if they pick some other referee next week to do this to? How long before in addition to those who don’t want to give decisions against them, we end up with a cadre of them who don’t feel as if they can? It is not hard to see how sporting integrity is impacted by that.
The SFA and the SPFL were too slow at tackling Ibrox’s behaviour before and that was seen as weak inside the club which now believes, and perhaps rightly, that it can act however it pleases without consequences.
They have to be dissuaded of that notion, and quickly.
The SPFL and the SFA have already made a major mistake in not sanctioning Ibrox for this already. Even if the refs stamp their feet and demand it, it will seem too little too late.
The game was weeks ago now.
The Ibrox statements were out in the first few days after it. This could and should have been dealt with immediately, and it’s not like the “governing bodies” would have had to work too hard finding things to charge Ibrox with. The disrepute charge virtually writes itself, there’s no need for anyone to gild the lily here.
It is equally obvious that their conduct runs counter to the best interests of the sport.
It’s a farce that it’s taken this long and if it only happens now because refs demand to know why it hasn’t happened yet that will linger in a lot of people’s memories for a long time to come.
But if that meeting goes by today and nothing happens, the effects will be larger and the anger deeper and the problems far more extreme … and we won’t have “governing bodies” anymore, just a group of people who “administer” the rulebook without enforcing it.
My opinion is that Collum will be deemed ‘ surplus to requirements ‘ after today’s pow wow . Oh , the authorities might not state that specifically , but today is the beginning of the end for wee Willie as far as the top flight officiating is concerned . If that happens then in effect a football clumpany have decided his fate and his career is finished . It would be nice if the governing bodies backed their guy to the hilt by making a backing statement ….who knows ? We will know today however ,which set of lunatics are in charge of the asylum !
They will issue a statement telling every club not just the guilty one about integrity blah blah blah.
“SFA credibility…” 🙂
The Scottish football game’s governing body empahtically lost ANY
vestiges of credibility back in 2012.
Dozens of ineligible players fielded over a decade were deemed
to be uniquely, ‘improperly registered’ by the SFA:
no 0-3 losses needed, no trophies lost, no amendments needed
to the Scottish football records of ‘winning’ teams’…!
That’s when the SFA reached its nadir as a blatantly corrupt, inept organisation.
That the SFA was not replaced in 2012 – or even just re-branded – shows
just how complicit ALL the other 41 clubs were – and are today.
If we suspect that our own Board is highly compromised / conflicted about 2012,
and this is the underlying reason for continued silence from CFC,
then the SFA must be a a hell of a lot more compromised / conflicted?
Can’t see the SFA doing anything at all about sevco.
Will be even more surprised if the compromised / conflicted Scottish Referee’s
Asssociation rocks the boat either.
At most, a strongly worded statement about future sevco conduct,
but no action taken / required by the SFA ! 🙁
If Collum doesn’t officiate at any of their games we should ask that Beaton to start with doesn’t do any of ours.
Hi,do you know if the spitting incident has been addressed?
I’m with you on this James.
The SFA is too conflicted and complicit on the SEVCO issue.
There is a hard core of the SFA that are basically Sevconians ( can’t use the ‘ H’ word anymore, can we?) in Blazers. The rest are, as you have previously described in relation to corrupted Organisation or Institutions, made up of the ‘going along with to get along with’ pen pushers who wouldn’t last long in any serious enterprise.
No it will be Obfuscation to the ‘nth’ degree.
“The meeting was informative”, “ dialog was honest and respectful’ and the old standby
“ lessons will be learned”. The Debtdome Board will be cautioned as to its behaviour going forward and job done,case closed. Now switch on the Snooker lads.
No, change will have to be forced on the SFA by outside Agencies before any progress can be made. Until the other Clubs in Scotland rally round then we are stuck with it. It won’t be easy, especially as lot of the smaller Clubs are just smaller versions of the liquidated Rangers but with fans that can’t afford the bus fare to Ibrox. And that’s not being disrespectful of other Club’s fans, that is just the reality in Scotland.
I don’t think anyone actually believes there’s going to be any sanctions against that club for this. They’ve done much worse and not been sanctioned for it. The sanction bar for the club from Ibrox is set so high that short of them assaulting a referee like a Turkish director, it’ll never be reached.
SFA credibility? think that ship sailed years ago, if it ever existed.
I’m sorry but I’m not buying into this claim, if the same had happened to our club I would be extremely unhappy if Lawell and co didn’t react in the same way, we all accept that no penalty would have been given but the fact is the officials on duty didn’t come up with the offside decision until 40mins later, this is about incompidance at the highest level, are refs actually cheating? We have often thought so, or are they really that bad? It’s about time the SFA got to the bottom of this before we are at the receiving end of another bad decision and we can’t blame sevco for that.
Your missing the point, we all get annoyed by decisions in games,But the team playing out of Ibrox have a habit of complaining to the SFA about any 50/50 decision not going their way, and putting pressure on refs who they see as not Sevco minded’
This particular decision was proved to be correct so what was the point of their complaint, my God a Celtic supporter on a Celtic site trying to justify attempts by the most entitled club in Scotland to intimidate certain referees, that definitely takes the prize for being devils advocate.
Scottish football since 2012 has become a corrupt farce The SFA, SPFL and UEFA are all complicit in the destruction of any honesty within the game. As soon as it was decided that the new club playing out of Ibrox were allowed to keep the history of the old liquidated club and the trophies won whilst fielding players with improperly registered contracts then the game was up.
Right there and then finance came before honesty in Scottish football. The board of every club in Scotland[Except the Turnbull Hutton led Raith Rovers] were complicit in this situation and as the biggest club in Scotland our board were even more guilty than the others.
The successor club playing out of Ibrox these days now feel that they can get away with anything and it looks as if they are right.
The rest of this season is going to interesting, Sevco not content with most refs being Sevco minded are now intimidating anyone who isn’t.
Our cowardly board are content to hide under cover at Celtic Park.
The SFA should have brought charges the very instant they had proof that Rangers* were bringing the game into disrepute and endangering personnel and their livelihoods.
Hope Collum resigns and takes the SFA to court.
My point is that the officials made a complete mess of the whole situation, no penalty give, no offside given, the match restarted with a goal kick to us, and because sevco complain we get our well paid officials crying to their paymasters that their getting picked on, if they would have come out and said “we got it wrong”, that would have shut up sevco and we could all move on, but now every team including us run the risk of these officials pulling the same stunt whenever it takes their fancy.