Scotland’s referees met up at the Oriam Centre in Edinburgh yesterday and pleaded for the criticism to stop!
Social media has highlighted the inconsistencies from the match officials- compounded by their bosses at Hampden and the highly selective use of retrospective punishments.
Celtic’s last two matches have been riddled with errors in games refereed by two of Scotland, and Lanarkshire’s finest, Willie Collum and John Beaton.
At Aberdeen Collum awarded two ridiculous penalties to the home side and decided that a leg breaking attack on Ryan Christie by Niall McGinn only merited a yellow card.
Three days later Beaton came up with some amazing decisions in the Glasgow derby although based on previous performances it was par for the course.
Alfredo Morelos escaped even a talking to for various attacks with the SFA backing Beaton by opting out of any retrospective punishment. That decision prompted a request from Celtic for his match report to be published.
Rather than respond positively to calls for accountability there has been a whisper of industrial action or a strike as it’s known in the real world.
The SFA haven’t responded directly to Celtic’s request but yesterday the referees got together in Edinburgh with The Sun source reporting.
“The meeting was exactly what we needed to restore some calm after a really frustrating few weeks. The boys got the chance to have their say and made their feelings known and it was taken onboard.
“We all expect to be criticised but it’s clear the level of abuse at us has to stop. That was taken on board and hopefully it’ll now be discussed further at Hampden.”
Tomorrow the SFA will announce the match officials for this weekends Scottish Cup ties and the midweek card that sees Celtic host St Mirren.