Referee chief John Fleming has claimed that for a millisecond Steven McLean’s view of Josh Meekings handball was not 100%.
Fleming made the incredible claim in an interview with the Evening Times while former referee Kenny Clark embarked on a media tour explaining how McLean, additional assistant Alan Muir and linesman Frank Connor were all momentarily unsighted as the Inverness defender punched away Leigh Griffiths’ header.
“I don’t think there was anyone in the ground who would have thought it was 100% a penalty and sending off until they had seen the replay,” Fleming claimed. “When you watch it again on TV you can see clearly that it has a handball, no question about that but that is most apparent when the replay is slowed down and you watch it again.
“Steven could see through the gap in play as the game unfolded but there was a millisecond, a click of the fingers when his view was not 100%.”
The gap that Fleming talks about was pretty substantial, his deflection tactic is concerning, if that is the attitude from the man in charge of refereeing there really is a problem.
Sunday’s incident was cut and dried, 90% plus of supporters inside Hampden saw the incident clearly, there was little doubt about it.
McLean and Muir are among the elite SFA referees. They deal with and study these type of incidents all the time, they get taken to La Manga in January to stay up to date with the latest referee training methods.
To ensure the fairest of results in semi-finals the SFA employ two additional assistants to make sure that the key decisions are given.
If McLean and Muir are unable to see Meekings handle the ball they shouldn’t be allowed near another top match for a long long time.
Fleming added: “What we do is speak to the officials involved, we take their view on what happened, we look at a freeze frame on the incident in question and we then look at their positioning.
“Alan was a very short distance from the incident when it happened. For him to see properly when the ball was headed goalwards, he would have had to see through the head of the player. So I can see why in real time it looked as though the ball hit his face.
If McLean has a vision problem when he has a clear uninterrupted view on a bright sunny day he should be taken out of the front line and allowed to continue his love of refereeing at a lower level of football where his decision making is less critical.