Willie Collum is one of five referees axed by UEFA for the knock out stages of the European Championships.
The Lanarkshire based referee took charge of the group matches involving France v Albania and Turkey v Czech Republic but won’t be involved in any of the knock out matches.
Collum’s erratic style of refereeing has failed to impress the UEFA refereeing officials with the retained refs all having hope of taking charge of the final.
During the domestic season Collum was never far from criticism and often found himself under attack from both managers in their post match media conferences. In August Robbie Neilson admitted that Hearts trained with ten men whenever they knew that Collum would in charge of their match.
Speaking before Euro 2016 started John Fleming, head of refereeing at the SFA, said: Willie has had a good season, and he is very consistent. I can’t think of any referee in the country who hasn’t gone through a period where they haven’t quite hit the levels they have set for themselves.
“Craig Thomson, Steven McLean, Kevin Clancy, Bobby Madden, so on and so forth, they all maybe do drop from one period of time, no different to the way a footballer does.
“It is my job to monitor it all but to have a system in place where there are mentors who speak to the referees and go through the games with them. All I would say is all referees go through dips but the good referees learn from them and become stronger.”
According to reports tonight Collum is on his way home alongside Sergei Karaszjov, Hategan Ovidiu Pavel Kralovec, Svein Oddvar Moen and Clement Turpin.
England’s Martin Atkinson will referee the Wales v Northern Ireland match on Saturday.
