Steven McLean and Willie Collum will referee Celtic matches away to Hearts and Dundee.
McLean, who refereed the Scottish Cup semi-final against Inverness Caley Thistle in April, will take charge of Sunday’s match at Tynecastle with Collum the man in the middle three days later at Dens Park.
With half of the league season completed the Hearts fixture will be McLean’s third Celtic appointment with Collum refereeing his fourth Celtic match at Dundee. FIFA rated official Andrew Dallas has still to take charge of any first team Celtic fixture although he will be the fourth official at Dens Park.
Frank Connor will be one of the linesmen at Tynecastle, he was the North Stand side linesman at Hampden when Josh Meekings used his arm to prevent a Leigh Griffiths header going into the net..
The day after the Inverness Caley Thistle match Celtic issued a statement saying: “WITH the Club being inundated today, Celtic can confirm that it has written to the SFA regarding yesterday’s match and in particular the incident involving Leigh Griffiths and Josh Meekings.
“First and foremost we absolutely congratulate Inverness Caledonian Thistle on reaching the Scottish Cup final. They are a fantastic club and reaching the final is a great achievement.
“However, given the level of reaction from our supporters and across football, we are duty bound to seek an understanding of what actually happened.
“We have not been given any other specific explanation so far and this is simply to understand the circumstances of what went on and why such an obvious error was made.”
No reply to that statement was made public.
Despite being appointed to referee at next summer’s European Championship Finals in France Collum has had another terrible year.
The Lanarkshire based referee started 2015 by having red cards in successive matches, involving Kenny McLean and Stephen McManus overturned on appeal. On Saturday he wrongly awarded penalties for either side in Falkirk’s win over Sevco.
The SFA Grinch just took a big shite in our stocking …
I’ve said it b4 and I’ll say it again..I wish Celtic would stop going to the Aprons in the Sfa..Were getting nowhere..The only way for hoops fans to get satisfaction here is to deal with it ourselves..It would only take it to happen once And the word would spread round they’re wee Masonic halls and I can guarantee it never and I mean never happen again..Just single out 1 then watch the shit hit the fan..ITS THE WAY FORWARD..SORT IT OUR FUCKING SELVES
If we play to our true potential domestically…the referee(s) are irrelevant.
Our current lack of fighting spirit SHOULD be more of a worry, meekly accepting mistakes / poor decisions / setbacks…not just this season but also last – S/f v ICT being a clear case. The wrong decision SHOULD have fired up the players to new levels.
Do all OUR talking where it matters…on the park.
Don’t forget your batteries.
FFS Joe you like to waste our festive season, with great news I know that we have had this problem with referee`s yes they have there own rule`s williebhoy says so but there is nothing worse than referee`s that give bad calls, so don`t come this we have to ignore them, going back last week yes we never turned up but Madden showed us when he let McManus off with bad tackle, they are really hurting so Hibs I feel sorry you may not get fair crack of the whip