Hearts and Aberdeen are leading a bid to drive honest mistakes out of football.
According to a report on the BBC website introducing VAR (Video Assistant Referees) is a priority for a new year summit with the club’s prepared to fund that and full-time referees.
Aberdeen chairman Stewart Milne has told BBC Scotland that VAR and full-time referees should be seen “as an investment rather than a cost”.
And Hearts owner Ann Budge thinks “a number of clubs” would be willing to help finance such projects.
“The ultimate objective should be to help referees to be able to do their job more easily,” she told BBC Scotland.
“I believe that it’s a joint responsibility. There is a finite amount of money that comes in, say from broadcasting, and how that’s distributed should be reviewed.”
Those developments would pose a serious threat to the old boys network where the same lawyers and accountants make high profile mistakes on a regular basis, take on a Championship match a week later then return to the spotlight that they crave.
This season has seen a big increase in honest mistakes with three players given retrospective suspensions following incidents missed by referees in games against Celtic.
Willie Collum, Bobby Madden and Kevin Clancy were the referees involved with all three continuing to be put in charge of the top matches, Collum will referee Aberdeen v Celtic on Wednesday.
