The three contenders to referee Celtic v Sevco at Hampden
Tomorrow morning the SFA will announce who will referee the semi-finals of the BetFred Cup.
There won’t be too much interest in who is in charge of Saturday’s match between Morton and Aberdeen with all of the focus on Sunday’s Celtic v Sevco clash.
Willie Collum and John Beaton can be discounted from contention after being in charge of last weekend’s SPFL fixtures involving both clubs.
Collum was in charge last month when Celtic routed their city rivals 5-1 with Craig Thomson in charge of the only two other fixtures between the clubs, Hampden semi-finals in the League Cup and Scottish Cup.
With Sevco under severe pressure from various angles Sunday’s match is likely to be a challenging occasion for the match officials, the stakes are high for the Ibrox club with Mark Warburton feeling the strain of football management for the first time in his short career.
Celtic’s 5-1 win in the league was new territory for the former city trader who reacted bizarrely as the post mortem into a crushing defeat developed.
Straight after the match Warbo claimed that there was no real gulf between the teams before going on to say that after video analysis it was never a 5-1 scoreline. The records books and bookmakers would suggest otherwise.
Whoever is chosen to referee the match will be fully aware of the significance of the match, and know that their every decision will be carefully scrutinised by Chris Sutton and his mates at BT Sport.
CLICK HERE for the three contenders to referee Sunday’s semi-final.
CRAIG THOMSON
Has had a horrendous season so far highlighted by his refusal to co-operate with BT Sport at the St Johnstone v Celtic match which resulted in the broadcaster losing two adverts- the funding that pays for Thomson and his cronies.
Thomson does have the advantage of refereeing two previous semi-finals between the clubs which were relatively incident free with one exception.
During the February 2015 League Cup semi-final between the clubs it has been widely reported that Police Scotland had received evidence to suggest a pitch invasion should Sevco go three goals down.
With Celtic racing into an early two goal lead some strange decisions were made, noticeably Thomson failing to play advantage as Leigh Griffiths raced clear in on goal and Lee McCulloch escaping unpunished from various cautionable challenges.
BOBBY MADDEN
The Lanarkshire based referee was widely tipped on social media to be handling the 2015 League Cup semi-final tie but that rumour came to nothing.
For reasons not too obvious Madden has worked his way onto the FIFA list and assisted Willie Collum at the European Championship Finals in France.
Madden has had a quiet time of it this season and hasn’t refereed a match since Celtic’s 4-1 win over Aberdeen at the end of August.
After more than a month out of action it’s unlikely that he’ll referee Sunday’s match and will have to contend himself with watching from the sidelines.
This appointment would concern Celtic fans more than any other, memories are still very fresh from the 2015 Scottish Cup semi-final defeat from Inverness Caley Thistle.
Despite failing to notice a clear handball by Josh Meekings McLean’s career continued unaffected and was rewarded with being put in charge of the Hibs v Sevco Scottish Cup Final in May.
McLean has still to referee a Celtic match this season but if the SFA want to break away from the Collum/Thomson monopoly it’s likely that they’ll turn to McLean whose brother played professionally for Falkirk, Motherwell, Dundee United and Rangers (IL) amongst other clubs.