The Daily Mail has taken the crisis in Scottish refereeing mainstream by exposing the claims made by former match official Derek Crothers.
At the end of last season, sickened by a series of events, Crothers decided to give up on refereeing after 13 years of hard work had been brought to a halt as other golden boys were fast tracked through the ranks to the lucrative top fixtures and international appointments.
As a member of the Lanarkshire Referee Association- which has produced four of the seven Scottish refs on the FIFA list in Willie Collum, Andrew Dallas, John Beaton and Bobby Madden- he witnessed how the rise of a those close to Dallas Jnr as his own career stagnated.
Crothers kept his power dry about his resignation until the new year with the etims website giving him a platform to detail the issues that brought his career to a halt with decent referees leaving in their droves as they suffer under a system that appears to be shrouded in secrecy with who you know more important than your performances with a whistle.
Explaining the Lanarkshire influence of Hugh Dallas the former ref told the Daily Mail:
Hugh Dallas is now second in command with the UEFA referees. If the SFA put their nominations to UEFA, it’s Hugh Dallas who is in a position to influence those positions.
And it’s no coincidence that John Beaton, Frank Connor and Alan Mulvanny are all friends of Andrew Dallas. And all four are FIFA officials.
In my opinion, they have not been appointed to that level through ability. If you position yourself with the right person you have a good chance of making it in Scottish refereeing.
Responding to those allegations a spokesperson for the SFA stated:
Referee performances are reviewed on an ongoing basis and they will move up and down the categories accordingly.
Indeed, over the last five years there has been a 47-per-cent turnover in Category One officials.
All of our match officials are graded and selected purely on their ability through a robust and defined process, governed by the Referee committee.
On January 4 Celtic requested that the SFA make public the reasoning behind no action being taken by John Beaton against various assaults on their players during the December Glasgow derby, no answer has yet been offered. Beaton hasn’t yet been given a Celtic match in 2019.
We have a hands on managerhttps://t.co/qNjQfLuGuB
— Joe McHugh (@videocelts) March 5, 2019
