It hasn’t gone un-noticed that Willie Collum was involved in back-to-back Celtic matches over the last week.
Thankfully at Easter Road his involvement was kept to a minimum with Anthony Stokes not being booked for a similar offence that earned Niall McGinn a yellow card at Hamilton.
Both assistant referees showed a sharp grasp of the offside law and Craig Thomson refereed the game in an efficient rather than a Collum-like fussy manner
Collum’s appointment for the Hamilton match is mysterious.
For the original match scheduled for December 18 Mike Tumilty was to be the man in charge with Stevie O’Reilly as fourth official.
If Tumilty had got injured during the match then O’Reilly would have taken charge of the match.
Surely if Tumilty was unavailable for the re-arranged match O’Reilly should have been put in charge with a replacement fourth official brought in.
Despite reports suggesting otherwise Tumilty didn’t call off at the last minute forcing the SFA to rush in to calling up Collum for an unexpected midweek bonus of £800 for a night’s work.
The week’s match officials were announced by the SFA on Monday, a full 48 hours before the Hamilton match, with Collum given two Celtic appointments in a week.
There were plenty of officials available to select from for the Hamilton-Celtic match with just eight scheduled midweek matches throughout Scotland including the Rangers-Kilmarnock tie from the previous weeks appoitments.
For reasons best known to themselves the SFA decided to appoint Collum to replace Tumilty at New Douglas Park.
As well as involving him in back-to-back Celtic matches it was the third time in his last seven SPL matches that Collum has been put in charge of a Celtic game.
So far this season Collum has been in charge of 12 SPL matches- 4 of which have involved Celtic.
Hopefully it’ll be a long long time before he’s given another Celtic match as the SFA send him to the lower divisions and into junior football to learn about the game and how to referee matches.
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Collum is a cheating, sell-out barsteward.
It was pointed out to me,
that all officals had catholic sounding names,
why the appointment,
HE SAID THAT WEDNESDAY WAS MEETING NITE
I think we should keep the emphasis on the fact that Scottish referees have been performing ridiculously bad rather than rattle on about it being a conspiracy.
The conspiracy theories give our detractors fuel to call us paranoid while distract from the fact that horrendous mistakes have been made against us.
The conspiracy theory has been created by others.
Celtic have never used the phrase.
You won’t find many Celtic websites using it.
Sticking to facts and highlighting mistakes from officials prevents others from clouding the matter.
Collum is inept its really that simple, he should be nowhere near the SPL, Christ I wouldn’t want him at my local Juniors team either
He should stick to being a teacher as that suits his fussy ways.
A ref’s job is to apply the laws of the game as they see them (granted their opinion comes into it) but to not be able to call a clearly offside goal as such or give a penalty when your back is turned to play staggers belief
Much credit is due to wee Billy Dodds..I have consistently said that he is by far and away ..the most knowledgeable and honest of the BBC Hun Scotland’s pundits….
Yesterday….in spite of shocking attacks from Gordon../Young../Smith../Traynor …he stood his ground and stated that Celtic in general and on Wednesday night in particular had been shafted and suffered more wrong meaningful decisions than anyone else…and defended their right to say so .
It did not go down well with the BBC Hun apologists..but he told them like it is…fair play to you wee man…..hope you keep your job….
The be all and end all is that the refs in this country are not fit for purpose and that stems right through the SFA.
Pardon me if I’m being paranoid but, might the reason for the switch be that Hamilton tend not to do well when Tumilty is in charge?
Hamilton have lost 7 out of 10 games under Tumilty including the last four-in-a-row. Hamilton tend to do well when Collum is in charge.
Hamilton have now only lost 2 out of 10 games taken in total and are unbeaten in their four Collum home games. Celtic’s recent record with Collum is poor 2 wins in 7 in total and 1 win in 4 away.
There is clear statistical evidence to PROVE that SFA appointments are being routinely manipulated on a regular basis. In my opinion an independent investigation into SFA referee appointments is overdue.
A face you’d love to smack! £800!! Good for a few brandys down at the lodge with daddy! A disgrace!
Collum, a man interested in his career path and not about making the right calls.