Charlie Richmond has opened up on the ‘refereeing movement’ that operates within Scottish football.
Over the last decade it seems that only members of the Lanarkshire or Glasgow Referee Associations are likely to make it through the ranks onto the lucrative circuit of cup finals, Glasgow Derbies and the very lucrative international circuit.
Tomorrow at Ibrox Nick Walsh climbs on board the train, if all goes well he can look forward to a place alongside Willie Collum, John Beaton, Bobby Madden and Kevin Clancy.
Highlighting the issue is Andrew Dallas who was on the FIFA list before he had refereed his first Celtic match (at Stranraer in January 2016).
Andrew’s Dad, Hugh, is employed by UEFA but even with that helping hand the pressure proved to much with Dallas Jnr stepping down from international matches in the summer of 2019.
Match officials from the east coast of Scotland seem to be excluded from the elite fixtures with Richmond, from Ayrshire speaking out to The Herald about how the news was broke to him that he had reached his glass ceiling.
The opening gambit was that it was nothing to do with the refereeing but, ‘You don’t seem to be acting in the refereeing movement’.
I thought there were guys delighted to run my line week-in, week-out. So where were they getting that? It later seemed to become a bit of people talking behind your back. When the Head of Refereeing at the time and people I had respect for to turn round and say that, I could see the door being shut on me.
Reflecting on my career now, I was one of the so-called potential referees in the country to be told you’re not going to get involved in refereeing Scottish Cup finals or League Cup finals.
To be told you’d never referee an Old Firm game – but that it was nothing to do with your refereeing ability – was a massive slap in the face. When I heard that from people I respected up until then, I knew the door was shut.
Madden was in charge for successive Celtic visits to Ibrox in January and April of this year.