There is a wonderful storyline in the tremendous multi-award winning cop show The Shield, a show I’ve referenced here before and recommend without equivocation, and which I kept thinking about as I watch the latest round of Ibrox fury over Willie Collum unfold.
For several seasons, Vic Mackey and his LAPD unit, the Strike Team, operated inside their own little universe. They bent rules, broke rules, manipulated investigations and became extraordinarily good at surviving the consequences. They had enemies, certainly, but they understood the environment in which they operated and were usually able to stay one step ahead of anybody threatening them.
Then Jon Kavanaugh arrives.
Kavanaugh is Internal Affairs, and unlike many of the people who have tangled with Mackey before, he is absolutely relentless. He knows something is wrong. He knows the Strike Team is dirty. He just cannot quite prove enough of it, and what follows is one of the great cat-and-mouse battles in television.
Vic and his people undermine him. They frustrate him. They manipulate events around him. They exploit his weaknesses and gradually convince themselves that they have survived him too. Eventually, it appears they have. Kavanaugh’s investigation seems effectively finished. The Strike Team has weathered the storm. Another enemy has come for Vic Mackey and apparently gone away empty-handed.
Except they make one catastrophic decision of their own.
I won’t wander deep into that plot because you do not need to know every detail for the analogy to work. The important thing is that the Strike Team’s own decision creates a completely new situation, one which brings Kavanaugh roaring back into the Barn with more authority, more leverage and more determination than he possessed before.
And when he returns, he delivers one of the great lines in the entire series.
“Thank you … for bringing me back into your life.”
Every time I think about Willie Collum and the Ibrox club, I hear Kavanaugh saying it. Because Scottish football has somehow managed to produce its own version of that story.
For years, Willie Collum was one of the referee’s sections of the Ibrox support most disliked. His decisions were scrutinised endlessly, his competence questioned and his name repeatedly dragged into the broader grievance culture which has grown around refereeing in that part of Glasgow.
Eventually the club itself became involved.
After the controversy surrounding the Alistair Johnston handball incident in the December 2023 derby at Celtic Park, their club met the Scottish FA and pushed the matter far beyond simply disagreeing with a decision. Reports emerged that they wanted Collum kept away from their future fixtures.
The SFA rejected that request outright. Not quietly either.
The governing body made clear that clubs were not going to dictate which referees handled their matches, while the referees’ association described attempts to influence future appointments as deeply unhelpful. But he never did referee another Ibrox club game.
The story might have ended there. They wanted Willie Collum out of their lives. They got their wish, in a sense, but there was a sting. Within months something happened which, from the perspective of their fans, must have resembled a cosmic joke.
Willie Collum stopped refereeing their games.
Because Willie Collum got promoted.
In May 2024, the Scottish FA announced that he would become its new Head of Refereeing. The man whom Ibrox had reportedly wanted excluded from their fixtures was no longer merely capable of turning up one Saturday with a whistle.
He was now running the entire operation. In trying to destroy him, they handed him more power than he’d ever have wanted to have. When did he decide to apply for that job? In the timeframe where he’d been publicly humiliated, I’d guess.
He owes Ibrox a lot. “Thank you for bringing me back into your life.” Yeah, by trying to force him out of it in the first place. That’s what’s called blowback.
And what makes it most delicious is what happened next, because Collum did not simply take the job and preserve the system exactly as he found it.
He changed it. Whatever anybody thinks about individual decisions — and there will always be arguments about those — Scottish refereeing under Collum became more transparent than it had been before.
He began meeting clubs, managers, players and supporters. He openly acknowledged that the previous seasons had not been good enough and outlined changes including fewer unnecessary VAR interventions, improvements in decision-making speed and greater communication surrounding controversial calls.
Then came the really important change.
Decisions started being explained. The SFA introduced regular VAR reviews in which major incidents were publicly examined. Collum discussed what officials had seen, what the laws required and, crucially, whether they had got things right.
Sometimes he defended them. Sometimes he didn’t.
That seems almost obvious when you write it down, but Scottish refereeing had spent decades operating behind a curtain. The official made his decision and everybody screamed about it and generally the institution itself said very little.
Collum started opening the curtain. Weekly independent panels were introduced to review key incidents, while the public VAR programme gave supporters much more information about how decisions were being reached.
And that inevitably put officials themselves under more pressure.
Once somebody is going to sit publicly a few days later and explain whether you got the call right, there is nowhere near as much room to hide. That is accountability. It is also exactly the sort of thing football supporters spent years saying they wanted.
Explain the decisions. Tell us why VAR intervened. Tell us why it didn’t. Admit mistakes. Give clubs clarity. Willie Collum has done more of that than the Scottish game traditionally received, and the SFA’s own chief executive subsequently described the increased transparency under him as making a significant difference.
But this is where the whole story becomes wonderfully circular.
The Ibrox support spent years complaining that Scottish refereeing lacked accountability. Willie Collum introduced more accountability. They complained that nobody explained controversial decisions. Willie Collum started explaining controversial decisions. They complained that referees could make mistakes without anybody holding them responsible. Willie Collum publicly identified mistakes.
And somehow their relationship with the system appears no happier than before.
Perhaps even less happy.
Which raises a fairly obvious possibility. Maybe what some people actually wanted was not transparency. Maybe they wanted validation.
Transparency means that sometimes Willie Collum will sit down, examine the evidence and say that the Ibrox club should not have received a decision. Sometimes his own officials, knowing they will be scrutinised, have played with a straight bat. When decisions go in favour of Celtic, the SFA explains why … and the conspiracy theorists go nuts.
This is where the Kavanaugh comparison becomes almost perfect.
The Strike Team thought Kavanaugh was the problem because Kavanaugh was looking too closely at them. They wanted the scrutiny removed. Then their own actions placed them in a position where the scrutiny returned in a much stronger form.
The Ibrox support spent years making Willie Collum a symbol of everything they thought was wrong with refereeing. Their club eventually reached the extraordinary stage of reportedly asking that he should no longer be involved in their matches.
The SFA refused. And then Scottish football effectively said: you think Willie Collum has too much influence over your Saturday afternoon? Fine. Here’s Willie Collum in charge of the whole bloody thing. What a slap in the face. What a shock.
I remember the day I heard it had happened. I was genuinely stunned. Imagine how they felt. And my first thought was Kavanaugh and that wonderful line of his.
They wanted less Willie Collum. They got more Willie Collum than they had ever imagined possible, and a more powerful Collum at that.
And worse still, from the perspective of the grievance merchants, he started changing the system in ways which made conspiracy theories harder to sustain rather than easier and I think he’s probably now built in with the bricks.
Not every decision is correct and nobody serious claims otherwise. Human beings are administering the laws of football and therefore human error will continue to exist. But it is increasingly difficult to argue that Scottish refereeing is somehow less accountable under Collum. It is impossible to argue that it is worse off.
And that brings us to the latest stage of the relationship, where the Ibrox club seems permanently engaged in low-intensity warfare with the refereeing establishment. Meetings are demanded. Explanations are demanded. Statements follow decisions.
Then came the much-discussed refereeing summit, which Ibrox called itself. I think they were looking for allies for a coup, and one of the things I am almost certain they wanted was a consensus around removing Collum himself.
Clubs should want better refereeing. Celtic should want it. Hearts should want it. Aberdeen should want it. Every professional football club should want the standards improved because everyone benefits when officials make better decisions.
But the Ibrox referees summit was not about that at all.
Whatever was supposedly established by their summit – and not every club even appeared equally enthusiastic about participating – there has been no great uprising against Willie Collum. There has been no collective Scottish football demand that his reforms be dismantled. And why would there be?
From the perspective of clubs which spent years asking for greater clarity, some of the things Collum has introduced are exactly what they wanted. You might disagree with him over an individual call. You might think VAR still intervenes too often or not often enough. You might want full-time officials, better technology, more investment or a different interpretation of certain laws. Those are perfectly legitimate discussions.
But that is very different from believing Willie Collum himself is the problem and trying gather up a posse to have him removed.
The reason this issue has arisen again recently is the perception within Ibrox that the start of the season has proved that the conspiracy is real and that he is part of it. That’s why there is talk of more meetings, that’s why the club itself continues to push the line that it has issues with how certain decisions are made.
And I think that is why the Ibrox club may discover that its continued pressure campaign achieves remarkably little. A club certainly does not get to remove the Head of Refereeing because a section of their fanbase despises him.
Here’s my favourite bit; everything they do to screw him over makes it more likely not only that he will survive but that he’ll be strengthened.
The Strike Team thought they had finally escaped Kavanaugh before their own choices created the conditions for his return. Suddenly he was standing in the Barn again, stronger and more dangerous to them than ever. And I cannot shake the image of Willie Collum walking into his Hampden office for the first time, looking metaphorically in the direction of Ibrox and delivering Kavanaugh’s line.
“Thank you for bringing me back into your life, and not just into it but at the very centre of it.”
Because he’s not just got the power over them now in the games where he officiates.
In some ways, he is a constant thorn in their side … and they are stuck with it.
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You didn’t mention the infamous “underlying issues” statement from sevco James which showed the main issue they have with Collum. Ironically, I think if they ever do succeed in getting rid of him they might regret it as they’ll no longer have the “bogey man” to feed their grievance culture and keep the eejits spending their money.
gollum is not or nor ever was a friend of Celtic his two penalties for aberdeen against us proved that , the huns know that but seemed to sense a weakness in him that could be used to their advantage a trait employed for over a century
When yourgorn flop recently in keeping with tradition crossed on to the playing pitch doing his alex ferguson bully impersonation on the whelk walsh he was met with fury and anger in return for the flop with his disgusting remarks on beaton forced him from his home and his phone number given to the onion bears , the whelk and the rest of the bent in black seem to have grown a pair and it looks like the usual intimidation employed for years may have lost it’s bite and know this must be faced down , the months ahead will be very interesting indeed
Collum gave the huns a penalty against Celtic when he had his back to the incident and didn’t even see it, and yet they still hated him purely because of his religion.
Excellent article James and a brilliant analogy with The Shield.
Sevco have actually exposed their own devious reasons for complaining about Collum and for their ludicrous conspiracy theories.
They want untitled unfairness returned to Ibrox. The very process their predecessors, the institution known as Glasgow Rangers, had running as the smoothest operation in Scottish Football.
This incredibly entitled process of cheating in plain sight, and bragging about it into the bargain, unfortunately for them died with their predecessors. “sir” David Murray took the cheating too far and killed off their notoriously unfair advantages forever.
Entitled unfairness not untitled!