Unfortunately for Scottish football fans it was only the FIFA list that Andrew Dallas stepped down from over the summer, he still gets regular high profile matches in Scotland.
Reaching the FIFA list is the aim of every aspiring match official whether a referee or assistant. Regular travel, business class flights and five-star hotels with a hefty payment that would match the average wage for a month.
Without having taken charge of a Celtic match, at the age of 32, in 2015, Dallas joined the FIFA list no doubt looking forward to a long lucrative career much like his attention loving father, Hugh.
Strangely this summer he resigned. Perhaps he jumped before he was pushed, or maybe someone within UEFA had realised that he was badly out his depth- a conclusion that anyone watching yesterday’s Celtic v Livingston match would probably agree with.
Yesterday Celtic had 73% of possession according to the BBC website, despite their time wasting we’ll assume that the ball was in play for 60 minutes giving Celtic possession for 44 minutes. Dallas awarded 9 fouls against Livi, a free kick every 4 minutes and 47 seconds.
Two weeks ago, Nick Walsh was in charge when Steven Gerrard’s side visited Livingston, they had 60% possession which works out at around 36 minutes.
Walsh gave the visitors 17 fouls, a foul every 2 minutes and 9 seconds.
Were they twice as dirty against the Ibrox side or twice as clean against Celtic, or perhaps refereed to completely different standards?
The Laws of the Game don’t make any allowances for ability. It seems quite clear that teams playing against Celtic get a sympathy vote from match officials, an extra allowance against higher skilled and better paid opponents.
With a new appointment as Head of Refereeing being advertised hopefully there will be a fresh approach to the issue but the cynics suspect that a familiar old face will replace John Fleming continuing business as usual within the SFA.
