5th September 2026; The Marbill Coaches Stadium, Paisley, Scotland; Scottish Premiership Football, St Mirren versus Celtic; Referee Ryan Lee checks the VAR screen before ruling out Shim Mheuka of Celtic effort for offside
Celtic will have to overcome Ryan Lee if they are to take full points from Hibs on Sunday.
Lee is one of the emerging group of referees that have been groomed by Willie Collum to take charge of top flight matches.
Lee was the match referee when Celtic played St Mirren in August with one incident standing out from the fixture.
Shim Mheuka looked to have scored a third goal for Celtic when he burst through in the latter stages of the match.
Lee saw nothing wrong with the goal, neither did his assistant.
In the VAR studio a ‘technical issue’ meant that Don Robertson was unable to apply the offside lines to the incident.
With no evidence to disallow the goal Robertson took an unusual move, one that he wouldn’t replicate if he was on UEFA duty.
THEY DON’T KNOW WHAT THEIR DOING- CELTIC KNOW WHAT TO EXPECT
Lee was ordered over to the pitch-side monitor to view a STILL image!
No officials on UEFA duty this week would dream of asking a referee to make an offside call on a still image, without VAR lines added.
Being the younger partner Lee went with Robertson’s instructions to disallow the ‘goal’ from Mheuka.
@ScotlandSky Common sense would tell you if the VAR can’t draw lines, the assistant referees on field decision should stand. If not what’s the point of the assistant referees and 4th officials?
— Scotland’s Indy ??????? (@scotlandsindy2) September 5, 2026
While every other country inside UEFA works to prevent conflicts of interest Collum believes that Scottish match officials are a different breed. Free from outside influences.
Lee is a former pupil of Musselburgh Academy, a hotbed for Hearts fans and just five miles away from Easter Road.
Sunday’s match will be Lee’s sixth SPFL Premiership match of the season. Only Collum can explain why he has been given a second Celtic fixture when the SFA have used 12 referees so far in the Premiership.
Celtic’s win over St Mirren also featured a strange VAR decision to disallow a ‘goal’ from Camilo Duran during the first half. The evidence offered by Sky Sports for disallowing the goal was far from convincing.
Nick Walsh will be on VAR duty for Sunday’s match.
CLICK HERE for the weekend refereeing appointments.
Same old crap. We’ll just have to score 10 so they can disallow 5 by whatever magical lines they can draw and the linesmen who really should have went to specsavers. Let’s see what the europa league game brings first before we have to worry about the muppet in black against the hibees.