The Sun has claimed that the prospect of recruiting foreign referees WASN’T discussed at Monday’s meeting between the SFA and top flight clubs.
Yesterday the Daily Record ran with a story that a plan to bring in foreign referees was discussed with the initiative led by Celtic.
Throughout Wednesday the idea was trashed by various journalists and pundits on social media with Alex McLeish brought out for a media conference where he called for Scottish referees to get extra support.
By tea-time on Thursday Sky Sports had heard from their sources inside the SFA that the idea was a non starter. All the while the idea that Celtic wanted foreign referees brought in had stuck.
Ibrox Managing Director Stewart Robertson rarely surfaces in public but spoke out in a club video about the SFA and BBC, today he gave a brief interview in The Sun but it was one line outwith his quotes that deserves most attention from Celtic supporters.
The topic didn’t arise at the regular Hampden meeting of all 12 top-flight clubs this week. Robertson has backed under-fire Scottish refs and repeated his plea to overhaul the disciplinary system and bring in VAR to support the men in black.
He told SunSport: “We are fully supportive of Scottish referees. We don’t believe there is any need to bring foreign referees into the system.
“Indeed, we are strongly against the idea. If we don’t support our refs now, it’s going to impact on retention and recruitment of refs.
“What would foreign referees cost? And what would it say to our younger referees that clubs were willing to go down this line?
“We are not for foreign referees, as we want to support Scottish refs and we also want VAR brought in as soon as possible. We appreciate there is an implementation time for VAR but let’s start that process now and support our referees.”
Celtic haven’t made any comment. either about introducing foreign referees or having the idea put at their door.