Demob happy Crawford Allan’s dangerous sign off

At lunchtime on Monday the SFA announced that Crawford Allan was stepping down as Head of Refereeing but will helpfully stay in place until the end of the season.

Later on that day Stephen McGowan revealed that Allan had been ousted after a vote of no confidence from Premiership clubs over the use of VAR.

Those clubs that effectively voted Allan out of his lucrative job with virtually no public accountability will now be subjected to his appointments over the remainder of the season.

Only a complete idiot or the CEO of the SFA would allow this situation to arise.

There can be no doubt that Allan is following orders from Ibrox, his exclusion of Willie Collum from 10 SPFL rounds of fixtures since the December 30 Glasgow Derby confirms that decision despite the denials.

With a Fourth Official and VAR to be appointed that is 30 possible appointments for Collum all of which have been ignored in favour of the routine of John Beaton, Steven McLean, David Dickinson, Alan Muir and Don Robertson.

If there was any monitoring of performances by the SFA red flags would have been out early for the incredible 75 SPFL match run without having a penalty awarded with more than a season of those matches covered by VAR.

With the slimmest of margins between the title contenders for the richest ever SPFL prize Allan should be tucked away on gardening leave with an outside agency such as UEFA managing the Referee Department through until the end of the season.