Joe O’Rourke has challenged the SFA to publish match summaries from referees.
A decade ago the SFA had a whistle-blowers section on their website where referees would explain certain decisions, usually the controversial ones in the headlines.
Providing supporters with a simple explanation would assist everyone’s understanding of the game and cost a lot less than VAR (Video Assistant Referee).
Using the Celtic Supporters Association website O’Rourke explained:
My belief is that we should start by firstly acknowledging we have an issue with quality and consistency of our match officials. Once you admit that you can start to address the problem. I think a major factor is the lack of honesty and accountability, and I don’t necessary mean by officials being less than honest, I mean by admitting you got something wrong.
Something that would help greatly would be the match official giving a summary of the match after a suitable amount of time after a match has finished. Like every other job in life you have a duty to explain yourself if the circumstances call for it, if you work in a shipyard or building site and do something which affects the quality of the job, you have to explain yourself, so why shouldn’t match officials?
Yesterday’s match between Dundee and the tribute act was a typical example of where a brief match summary would help referees.
Nathan Ralph of the home side was red carded after 20 minutes in a decision that looked at best debatable.
The assumption was that the red card was for serious foul play, according to Dundee manager he asked Alan Muir about the decision with the referee claiming that it was for denying a goal scoring opportunity.
Dundee have decided to appeal that decision.