Madden was extremely lenient, to put it mildly- Kris Commons names Ibrox star that could have been booked three times

Kris Commons has delivered a devastating attack on Bobby Madden’s performance in Sunday’s Scottish Cup semi-final. 

The former Celtic forward played in matches refereed by Madden who seems to be the top man at the SFA with four Glasgow Derby appointments since January 2021. 

There was no headline grabbing red card or penalty incident but pundits such as Chris Sutton and Michael Stewart were amazed at the performance of the match referee. 

Madden did book five of Giovanni van Bronckhorst’s players but it was the ones that didn’t get booked such as John Lundstram that brought criticism of the referee. 

Picking up on his comments in the Daily Mail, Football Scotland reports Commons saying: 

A lot of people were questioning the performance of referee Bobby Madden. In all honesty, I found some of his decisions absolutely baffling. 

John Lundstram was excellent in the heart of the Rangers midfield, but the reality is that he was extremely fortunate to stay on the pitch for as long as he did. 

He could have been booked quite easily on three different occasions at the very least. But Madden was extremely lenient, to put it mildly. 

This raises another question. What good is VAR going to be in Scotland when the basic level of officiating is so obviously incompetent? 

Yeah, VAR will obviously will help with the big decisions like penalties and red cards. But you are still relying on the referees showing a basic level of competency beyond that. 

When we’ve got such an awful standard of refereeing, VAR isn’t going to be the silver bullet that a lot of people seem to think. 

All 42 SPFL clubs will vote on VAR on Wednesday which will bring Scotland into line with the major European nations. 

The two Glasgow clubs are scheduled to meet again on May 1 with the announcement of the match referee expected next Monday or Tuesday.