The boys of 2016 as Mark Warburton loses the Scottish Cup Final to Hibs
Out of 180 officials working at the 2026 World Cup Finals NONE will be from the SFA.
Despite virtually doubling in size with 106 matches, Fourth Officials, VAR and VAR assistants there is still no place for any of Willie Collum’s elite officials.
New Zealand, Romania, Poland, Honduras and Uzbekistan will all have referees at the competition.
John Beaton, Nick Walsh, David Dickinson, Steven McLean, Don Robertson and Collum’s other chums will be watching from afar.
Big payments are made to the officials from FIFA, nothing will be going to the men employed by the SFA.
Walsh has refereed some Champions League group matches this season but clearly hasn’t done enough to get a jolly to the World Cup.
In total there are 52 referees, none from the SFA. There are 88 assistant referees, none from Scotland and 30 VAR officials. Andrew Dallas and Greg Aitken have missed the boat.
There are 48 nations taking part in the World Cup spread across the USA, Canada and Mexico.
Officials from 50 Member Associations but none from Scotland.
Under Crawford Allan and Willie Collum there has been an emphasis placed on fast tracking younger officials.
Clearly this has backfired with FIFA not prepared to trust officials from the Crown Bar Bellshill, failed Tory MPs and others promoted for various reasons.
Collum has gone out of his way to foster strong relations across traditional media outlets, that will ensure minimum attention given to the snub from FIFA.
For almost two full years he has been presenting the VAR Review with Gordon Duncan in a bid to promote the human side of referees.
That’s an open goal for any ‘journalist’ to question the SFA:
“Why do you think FIFA & UEFA continue to overlook Scottish match officials,
whilst officials from smaller leagues are selected?
Many Scottish football supporters complain about the low standard of match officiating – with no signs of improvement.”
Given the levels of corruption at FIFA, I’m shocked that they’ve overlooked our SFA refs who are surely amongst the most corrupt officials in UEFA. Probably the combination of corruption, ineptitude and incompetence was a bridge too far for FIFA. My heart bleeds for our MIB who are now faced with the painful consequences of their ‘honest mistakes’.
Great points above folks !
Well they are sponsored by specsavers, an injoke by our referees that backfired maybe.
I always question anyone who says the refereeing in Scotland is poor.
I don’t think it’s any worse than anywhere else.
It’s just that here in Scotland they are compromised by their affinity for certain clubs, and due to the establishment rules, they would rather sacrifice their reputations and any chance of reffing on the world stage so their very favourite team get a result, even if it does make them look totally incompetent.
That’s the mentality of your Beaton’s and McLean’s etc, they would rather look utterly shite at what they do than advance themselves.
Imagine giving up on what should be a dream for a ref, to go to a World Cup, just so you can keep the hun hordes happy and even when you do, they still come after you cos it just isn’t ever enough.
You just have to look at the yellow & red card & pen history in Euro games for Sevco as opposed to the SPL to understand how differently they get treated depending who’s in the black.
Also, it actually must mean FIFA have had a gander at them, so they must see the inconsistencies.
Nae sympathy for any of them.
It does make me laugh at how Dickinson, Dallas, Beaton & Co are all willing to jeopardize their chance to participate in the elite tournament just to help the embryo club, world cup referee assessor’s only see the decision’s being made not the reason behind them……
HH