Wednesday’s friendly match at Murray Park went ahead without any linesmen because of strict testing rules.
But the same rules didn’t apply to the collection of starlets, misfits and flops put out by the home club with nine of the starting team not having produced a negative test in the previous week.
While the in-correct test results at St Mirren resulted in a statement from the Joint Response Group for Scottish football last night the revelation from the Daily Record appear to have prompted a vow of silence. It seems that ‘moving on for the good of Scottish football’ is again being applied to rule breaches from Ibrox.
Match referee Craig Napier was aware that his two linesmen had been barred from entering Murray Park but didn’t know that most of the home players hadn’t passed a test in the previous week.
The Sun reports:
RANGERS’ bounce game with Dundee United took place with no linesmen – after the officials’ results were not processed in time.
SunSport can reveal referee Craig Napier had the correct documents, but his assistants were refused entry to Wednesday’s clash at the Gers training base because they didn’t have up-to-date proof they were free of Covid-19.
It’s understood the situation arose because Napier had been tested at St Mirren, while his two linesmen had theirs taken at Motherwell – and were caught up in a delay along with the Fir Park players.
As the training ground game was a B fixture, it was allowed to go ahead with just a referee on his own.
The reporter, Robert Thompson, is based in Dundee.
Only two of the starting XI for the home side had been tested in the previous week. The other nine, including Young McCrorie, Calvin Bassey, Greg Stewart, Jordan Jones and Greg Docherty were at the Lyon tournament and didn’t get tested until Tuesday. Bassey also played in the evening match against Motherwell at Ibrox.
The results weren’t through before 1pm on Wednesday but despite being without two linesmen due to testing regulations referee Craig Napier allowed the game to go ahead.
The SFA were aware that the two nominated linesmen weren’t able to access Murray Park with the SFA not having recent negative test results for the starlets and misfits wearing best-in-class Castore kit.
In Austria LASK Linz were deducted 12 points for breaking regulations by having group training sessions while every other club complied by hosting individual training sessions.
Transparency is an issue that the SFA and SPFL have gone to great lengths to avoid.