Willie Collum backs out of announcing match officials

Willie Collum is holding back on announcing the match officials for Matchday 37.

Celtic travel to Motherwell on May 13 with Hearts hosting Falkirk the same night.

So far the SFA have held back from publishing the officials on their website.

Every Tuesday the SFA publishes the names of the match officials for the weekend matches.

When there is a midweek card they always add those appointments on to the weekend list.

But not this week.

Not after the horrific decision making by Don Robertson, David Dickinson and Douglass Ross at the Hibs v Celtic match on Sunday.

None of those three are involved in any of the top six fixtures this weekend.

Normally they could then expect to be involved in the subsequent round of fixtures.

Head of Refereeing Willie Collum will almost certainly have pencilled in the match officials for the five rounds of post-split fixtures.

After the decision making at Easter Road he will be very wary of where he involves Dickinson and Robertson. Ross can be eased aside as an assistant referee.

WILLIE COLLUM IN PANIC MODE AS TITLE RACE NEARS CONCLUSION

So far this season Robertson has refereed 21 Premiership matches. The joint second highest amount alongside Steven McLean, one behind Nick Walsh on 22 games. Dickinson has refereed 20. John Beaton and Matthew MacDermid are on 19.

Clearly they are regarded as Collum’s top officials.

The most likely to be involved in the fixtures that will decide the outcome of the Premiership title.

Yet just five days before matches are due to be played the SFA won’t announce who’ll be in charge at Fir Park and Tynecastle.

It could be that Dickinson and Robertson are dropped down to matches in the bottom six.

Clearly their decision making in Celtic matches is questionable. Would they double down if given another Celtic match or go overboard the other way to disprove the claims being made at Easter Road?

Naturally the Celtic board won’t utter a word of criticism about anything to do with the SFA.

Fans are different and know the names to look out for. Such as Beaton on VAR duty for Sunday’s Glasgow Derby.

Walsh, a school teacher at Boclair Academy, partner school for the Murray Park starlets will referee Sunday’s match.

None of Scotland’s leading officials have been selected to take part in the World Cup Finals.

YES- He took things too far against Hibs

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NO- He made mistakes but is a top referee

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