Douglas Ross has been criticised for missing a vital political meeting in order to pick up a match fee and expenses from Ibrox.
The leader of the Scottish Tories appears to have a special arrangement with the SFA that ensures he gets a Glasgow fixture every second weekend with the concerns and interests of his constituents far down his list of priorities.
A match fee from the SFA comes in at £445 for 90 minutes plus mileage and in the case of the nominally Elgin-based official very generous accommodation costs.
At the weekend Ross was on duty at Ibrox for the visit of Motherwell while the leaders of the other Scottish parties discussed the implications of the latest pandemic news with London and the south-east of England moved into Tier 4 with Scotland following on Saturday.
The Daily Record reports:
Scottish Tory leader Douglas Ross has sparked fury by missing a vital lockdown briefing because he was working as an assistant referee at Ibrox.
The MP, who earns about £445 for a top-flight match, was absent from a party leaders’ summit as a result of his second job running the line at football games.
His Holyrood stand-in, ex-leader Ruth Davidson, represented the Conservatives at the First Minister’s briefing – which was called to discuss the Scottish Government’s response to the spread of a new strain of the pandemic..
A spokesman for Ross said he was only alerted to the invite at half-time during Saturday’s Rangers v Motherwell match.
Ross has been in charge of four weekend SPFL matches at Ibrox, three at Celtic Park as well as a Scottish Cup semi-final at Hampden and Celtic’s Betfred Cup match against Ross County.
Conveniently for the part-time family man the SFA have given D Ross the Ross County v St Mirren match on Saturday with no other appointments during the festive period.
