Paul Heckingbottom was stunned to find out that Steven McLean had phoned up Steven Gerrard to apologise over failing to award his side a free kick during the 1-1 draw with Hibs last Friday.
The Ibrox boss was critical of the match referee in his post match media interviews as his side dropped more points in the SPFL title race.
Heckingbottom has only been in Scottish football for a month and was amazed to discover that a referee would pick up on one mistake and contact a manager to say sorry.
“I cannot believe the ref has done it, for lots of reasons,” he told The Sun. “Where does it stop? Because I guarantee you there will be another 20 or 30 wrong and probably another 100 decisions in every game which are contentious.
“Is it just the fact a goal came from that one? It’s crazy. Yeah, they need to look at that and they need to be really strong about it but to phone someone up? I can’t get my head around it. It is one little moment in the game.”
He added: “I have never had that happen to me before. But I have not been up here long, so they have not got my number yet!”
McLean isn’t on the elite FIFA list of referees but is a regular for top fixtures, famously taking charge of the Celtic v Inverness Caley Thistle Scottish Cup semi-final in 2015.
Despite a clear view of the incident he failed to award a penalty and red card after Josh Meekings handled a net-bound header from Leigh Griffiths. A goal would have put Celtic 2-0 in front, Inverness went on to win the match 3-2 to reach the Scottish Cup Final.
No apology was made to Ronny Deila, a year later McLean was rewarded by being appointed to referee the Scottish Cup Final.
This mystery has no easy answer, I’d think some sort of training and routine at Lennoxtown would help.https://t.co/06Br4IYljE
— Joe McHugh (@videocelts) March 15, 2019