The boys of 2016 as Mark Warburton loses the Scottish Cup Final to Hibs
Once again the John Beaton and Steven McLean tag team struck tio influence the SPFL Premiership title race.
For reasons only known to Willie Collum that duo have been paired together for three vital matches over the last few weeks.
When it comes to the big moments their decision making shows the same level of consistency as David Dickinson.
January 25- Beaton steps in to suggest a pitchside review which is an open goal to upgrade a yellow card for Auston Trusty to red. Hearts go on to equalise costing Celtic two points.
February 3– Craig Halkett of Hearts is given a red card by McLean, down to 10 men Hearts lose the match to an 88th minute goal from Miguel Freckleton.
That pattern continued last night at Fir Park.
Penalty ignored again by ref and VAR against Rangers pic.twitter.com/pbuZXKBMkD
— AberdeenRed ??????????? (@StandFreeDon) February 11, 2026
Late in the first half Motherwell were pushing for an equaliser. Callum Slattery took a step to the right then fired a shot goalwards.
MCLEAN TO THE RESCUE
John Soattar spread himself to block it with the ball. It hit his knee then as it was bouncing up Soattar used his left arm to send the ball towards the ground where he fell on top of it.
McLean raced onto the scene to award his younger brother’s former club a free kick.
What infringement had Motherwell committed other than taking a shot at Jack Butland’s goal.
The only decision to be made was whether Motherwell were due a penalty or an indirect free kick for obstruction.
McLean didn’t want to know. At Tynecastle last month Beaton was keen to re-referee the match, at Fir Park he decided to take a back seat.
No fan of any Scottish Premiership club was surprised by the outcome.
Beaton is a regular at the Crown Bar in Bellshill. In his school yearbook his fellow pupils noted how much he ‘loves the Rangers’.
McLean’s brother Brian was a former Rangers youth and reserve team defender.
Collum has a packed VAR Review to produce with his bestie, Gordon Duncan. Their last show was on January 16.
With two Glasgow Derbies coming up next month it would be a shock in the McLean and Beaton team wasn’t appointed for one of those matches.
Think that Motherwell scored around that incident but it was disallowed…
Replay of that goal not shown on Sportscene…
For whatever reason…
I think we all know why !
In the first half , huge misfit Chermiti jumped into a Motherwell player leaving the guy in a heap on the deck , yet McLean did not even go near his pocket for an obvious yellow card …at the very least ! Presumably the VAR poodles were having their tea and biscuits at that time as there was not a hint of a review of the mad lunge tackle ? Did I miss anything as I boiled the kettle John boy ? Nah …it’s all cool ? Ah , caramel digestives …my favourite !
Just out of curiosity, I found the list of FIFA’s refs/VAR candidates for this World Cup – to be confirmed next month.
The full list is split by FIFA region, so below is just the UEFA region.
Unsurprisingly, no representatives for Scotland are on this initial list.
However, there are representatives from other European ‘small’ leagues, including;
Bosnia & Herzoegovina [BIH]
Romania [ROU]
Slovenia [SVN]
Belgium [BEL]
Croatia [CRO]
Serbia [SRB]
Could someone in the SMSM ask the SFA why these ‘smaller’ leagues have managed to achieve representation,
…whilst Scotland’s match officials REMAIN excluded for yet another tournament ?
===============
UEFA
Referees
1. Irfan Peljto (BIH, 1984)
2. Michael Oliver (ENG, 1985)
3. Anthony Taylor (ENG, 1978)
4. Francois Letexier (FRA, 1989)
5. Clement Turpin (FRA, 1982)
6. Felix Zwayer (GER, 1981)
7. Maurizio Mariani (ITA, 1982)
8. Danny Makkelie (NED, 1983)
9. Espen Eskas (NOR, 1988)
10. Szymon Marciniak (POL, 1981)
11. Joao Pinheiro (POR, 1988)
12. Istvan Kovacs (ROU, 1984)
13. Slavko Vincic (SVN, 1979)
14. Jose Sanchez Martinez (ESP, 1983)
15. Glenn Nyberg (SWE, 1988)
16. Sandro Schärer (SUI, 1988)
Video Match Officials
1. Manuel Schüttengruber (AUT, 1983)
2. Bram Van Driessche (BEL, 1985)
3. Ivan Bebek (CRO, 1977)
4. Jarred Gillett (ENG, 1986)
5. Carlos Del Cerro Grande (ESP, 1976)
6. Alejandro Hernandez Hernandez (ESP, 1982)
7. Jerôme Brisard (FRA, 1986)
8. Willy Delajod (FRA, 1992)
9. Bastian Dankert (GER, 1980)
10. Angelos Evangelou (GRE, 1983)
11. Marco Di Bello (ITA, 1981)
12. Marco Guida (ITA, 1981)
13. Rob Dieperink (NED, 1988)
14. Dennis Higler (NED, 1985)
15. Tomasz Kwiatkowski (POL, 1978)
16. Piotr Lasyk (POL, 1979)
17. Andre Narciso (POR, 1983)
18. Ovidiu Hategan (ROU, 1980)
19. Momcilo Markovic (SRB, 1987)
20. Fedayi San (SUI, 1982)
Final selection seminars for Referees
AFC/CAF/OFC: Doha (Qatar), 23-27 February 2026
CONCACAF/CONMEBOL: Rio de Janeiro (Brazil), 12-16 January 2026
UEFA: Dubai (UAE), 2-6 March 2026
I’m surprised the bookies haven’t got involved after all it’s a form of match fixing
Look at the penalty given against scales, fouled, falling over, tucked his arm’s in tight,soapy sliding in like the teen wolf playing basketball,i lost count of how many imaginary fouls, were given against CELTIC,livi player booted the leg’s from under adamu and nothing,no surprise but the club speaking out would be a bigger surprise
Wee Willie Collum, Must be Scared of Certain Referees?????
You know when theres a helping hand from those two and dallas and the new brother dickinson watch how many times they syand outside the area Celtic on attack a defender couldnt take up a better position blocking pass and crosses shots he is interfering with play why in amongst play we gave var thats a joke why wullie column so quite is he sent on holiday or is our reporters not bothered
This blatant bias has been going on for many years and VAR has been used as a tool to assist in certain referees finding ways to bail Rangers out of a mess and stopping other teams from getting the decisions they deserve. I don’t need to mention names because it is blatantly obvious who the culprits are! SFA have a hand in all of this debacle too and they need to sort themselves out
Gordon Herriot @ 4.16pm…
The ‘Rangers’ that you describe are very Dead…
Other than that glaring error a very good post buddy !
This bias has been going on for years and years
Going back to the 70s when Messrs Davidson and Webster were unbelievably biased.
I think there was a contest between them to see who hated Celtic the most.
Sorry to say it will never change in Scotland.
A’ Jock Thamsons bairns, aye right.
The country is rotten to the core !!