The SFA are pinning all of their hopes on VAR to cure the chronic problems in Scottish refereeing.
Last night Ian Maxwell hosted a meeting at St Johnstone with 10 top flight bosses, referee chief John Fleming, Compliance Officer Clare Whyte plus Andrew Dallas, John Beaton and Kevin Clancy.
It seems that stamping on players, grabbing their genitals and the inconsistencies of retrospective action from the Compliance Officer were overlooked as a pre-planned feel good message was delivered from the meeting.
“It was a really good, positive meeting and everyone engaged in it,” Maxwell told The Sun. “It was good to get the managers, officials and the association together in the same room.
“There is a real appetite to fully investigate VAR, the managers see the benefits of it. This is something that between ourselves and the SPFL we will investigate it further.
“I think Scottish football can afford it and ultimately it will come down to a club decision. The SPFL have an amount of money and most of that is distributed to the clubs so if there is an element which has to be taken to cover the cost of VAR then that’s a decision that will be made.
“The managers were very positive about it tonight. John Fleming and I have already had a conference call with IFAB, who essentially own VAR and implement it on behalf of FIFA.
“We will now have to produce a fully costed model because there are different ways to implement it. We want to get that as soon as we can, IFAB have said to speak to similar sized nations and hear about their experience of it.
“It’s something we want to get on the table as quickly as we can. It’s a long-term project, it’s not a quick fix and needs to be fully understood by everyone involved.
“You need to see what you can use it for and what you can’t, so there is a training element to it which takes around 12 months. It’s not a quick fix but it would definitely be worth it in the long run. There were also discussions on full-time referees and the decision making processes, but VAR was the main thing.”
VAR, VAR, VAR and more VAR.
In the meantime Beaton, Bobby Madden, Dallas and Willie Collum, all from the elite Lanarkshire Referee Association, continue to implement their unique interpretation of the laws of the game.
On December 26 at Aberdeen Niall McGinn escaped with a yellow card for an over the ball attack on Ryan Christie right in front of Collum. Graeme Shinnie produced a laughable dive to win a penalty.
Three days later Beaton refused to speak once to Alfredo Morelos for three attacks on Celtic players that could have been worth a red card. The Compliance Officer refused to take any retrospective action.
Two weeks ago Celtic published a statement asking for publication of Beaton’s match report from Ibrox, so far there has been no reply to that request.