Willie Collum will referee Saturday’s Glasgow Derby- the first time that he has been in charge of the fixture in two years.
Don Robertson, Nick Walsh and John Beaton have refereed the fixture so far this season but it is Scotland’s most experienced whistler that will take charge of Saturdays match which will have a massive bearing on the outcome of the SPFL Premiership title.
Collum was on VAR duty for the December clash, afterwards he was subjected to repeated criticism from Ibrox culminating in a call for him not to be involved in future matches involving Phil Clement’s side.
On January 3 The Sun reported:
RANGERS have called on the SFA to ban Willie Collum from all future Gers games.
The Ibrox club submitted “a number of specific requests” following a meeting with Hampden chiefs.
Among them was a plea for Collum to be excluded from any involvement in any Rangers match moving forward.Gers claim the SFA admit Collum was WRONG not to penalise Alistair Johnston for handball in the Ibrox side’s 2-1 defeat at Celtic Park on December 30.
The SFA have chosen to make no comment, but SunSport understands the Hampden hierarchy strongly dispute Gers’ account of the meeting with refs chief Crawford Allan.
Since then the Lanarkshire based official has only refereed one Scottish Cup tie at Ibrox, the win over Ayr United but he was the Fourth Official for the 3-3 draw at Ibrox last month.
Steven McLean will be on VAR duty for Saturday’s match with Robertson the fourth official. Robertson will referee Celtic’s match away to Kilmarnock on May 15.
CLICK HERE for full SFA refereeing appointments.
CLICK HERE for Collum’s matches this season.
I certainly DO NOT see that as good news. Gollum has a lot of history with his antics in Scotland but good refereeing is not one of them. He’ll almost certainly do something highly controversial and I just hope to fukk it’s not against us.
If we play as we did against the jambos then we should blow ‘them’ away but FFS don’t give Gollum any opportunities to punish us or punish us he will.
Hail! Hail! The Glasgow Celtic, give us a performance and bury that scum, and more of the same in a coupla weeks to give Big Joe indelible, delightful memories of his time as a Bhoy!
Collum
“History”
and
“Antics”.
Intriguing!?
Collum is just incompetent totally out of his depth should have been binned years ago
There’s no shock, predicted he would get it, Sevco have him under so much pressure now, he cant give us decisions and he certainly cant give them against Sevco, lose lose for us, win win for them, he’s been compromised out of a job.
We win.. They and their media pasties will be howling at the moon for weeks, column will be sacked
Well surprised a must say,,,so no doubt the non pen will domanate the headlines all week now,, of course no pressure there,,, eh,,,
No shock Joe. Could be UEFA aware of SFA treatment of Willie.
YOU ask Michael Nicholson if he is a Mason.
And let us all know what he tells you!
A hopeless disaster as the ref and a hun on VAR
Hopefully Gollum gives us 4 pens, sends 3 ae them aff & then is carried aff after we HUMP them 9-0 lol! Announces retirement after game as a parting GIRFUY tae the Knuckodraggin SCUM LOL!!
No pressure wullie
This is really clever, Collum will be too scared to do anything that might upset The Sevcos
Much like Beaton last time out, a ref under immense pressure in a vital fixture. We don’t want favours we want fairness but Collum will be so wary of giving any decision that appears to favour us that he will overcompensate, and even if he doesn’t, there’s McLean on VAR to draw his attention to players headering their opponents boot or having the ball ricochet off the back off their arm when a teammate is clearing a corner…..
Best option: just blow them away. Make the refereeing an irrelevancy.
Assume Collum has a decent match!
Would you, as a Celtic supporter, trust repeat trust, VAR to Steven McLean?
That is the last guy on earth I would want, considering the power that can be wielded by the VAR Official!
A bit of a shocker but not sure how good it is…
So they finally capitulated and told Sevco to finally, finally fcuk off regarding Collum then –
Collum cannot and will not be seen to give any 50:50 calls Celtic’s way under any circumstances whatsoever…
And McLean on VAR –
Just as well we’ve found form on the field is all that I can say !
They didn’t really tell Collum to fuck off, he is still not allowed near a sevco home game in the league,the Ayr game he got is a cup game and gave him that to make it look good.
But you ain’t seeing him at a league game at ibrox anytime soon.
whilst quietly confident that we should win this game , i’m not so confident as many out there , i’v been round the block too many times to see the expected become the unexpected in these fixtures , i really fear the var and this referee who has before gone out of his way to prove he is not a Celtic lover , i’m reminded of the game against aberdeen where he gave 2 penalties against us and we were lucky to snatch that 3 points in the end , he however went out of his way for us to lose that day , the disgraceful penalties are up there to see , he and var will punish the slightest error for celtic while allowing sevco an easy ride , we will have to shock them from the start , no let up for the 90 plus minutes ,
Celtic have always had to deal with dubious appointments, particularly for this fixture. Keep the heid an’ do yer best, lads, the rest of the stadium is with you. 3 points would do nicely.