31st October 2026; Hampden Park, Glasgow, Scotland; Scottish Cup Football, Rangers versus Aberdeen; Referee Ryan Lee
Saturday evening at Hampden was a huge test for Ryan Lee with the Musselburgh based referee emerging with flying colours.
His ascent to the very top in Scottish football is assured as he follows the Willie Collum Template.
James Penrice was saved from a first half red card, Aberdeen were denied justice and Scottish football has the first cup finalists that it wanted.
Penrice was involved in a brutal first half assault, right in the line of vision of Lee who didn’t flinch, break his run or take any action.
The icing on the cake was when Penrice delivered the assist for the decisive goal in the 83rd minute of the match.
Derek McInnesis one match away from lifting the first trophy of the season with Lee assured of future appointments for the biggest fixtures.
COLLUM’S CLONES SUCH AS RYAN LEE HEAD TO THE TOP IN SCOTISH REFEREEING
Like Duncan Nicolson who referees Celtic at Motherwell today and Matthew McDermit, Collum has another referee he can trust.
Of course Lee will never get near any worthwhile appointments from UEFA but he has secured himself a very lucrative second income with lots of regular lucrative travel appointments. Plus access to the lucrative SFA Expenses Account, much loved by Douglas Ross.
@AGCeltic_ https://t.co/GvhjiabHWh
Slow motion replay – shocking!
— The Global Tablet of Jurisprudence (@gtj1247) October 31, 2026
Contesting a ball in the middle of the park Penrice raised his foot to waist level then bent his knee slightly for extra drive as he sunk his studs into Afeez Aremu.
Lee saw the incident clearly and didn’t stop play. He was perfectly positioned to view the contact, only he will know why he took no action.
John Beaton was on VAR and has made a career out of similar decisions.
Between March 1 and May 13 this year Beaton missed three Celtic penalties with only the intervention of VAR allowing justice to be done.
Beaton took to the spotlight in 2014 when he denied Albion Rovers a Scottish Cup win at Ibrox by allowing a ridiculous goal from Bilel Moshni to stand.
Emerging referees like Lee look at Beaton, Don Robertson, Steven McLean to see more than a decade at the top of Scottish refereeing.
With Honest Willie as Head of Refereeing at the SFA the only certainty is more of the same.
NOTE 1: Lee was the match referee at St Mirren who viewed a still image on the VAR screen to disallow a ‘goal’ from Shim Mheuka
NOTE 2: Lee demonstrated the Disadvantage Rule to perfection in last week’s Hibs v Celtic match.
@AGCeltic_ Straight leg, studs showing, I can only assume it wasn’t a red card because (a) it was a “therangers” player committing the foul and (b) he was in total control of what he was doing
— timmyb (@sgillespie64)
@AGCeltic_ That was 100% stick on Red Card , ref looking right at it from a couple of feet away, I saw nothing the other way round Aberdeen would be down to 10 men.
— frank walsh (@walsh2509)
@AGCeltic_ @BigPatsy01 HAS TO BE ONE OF THE MOST UNBELIEVABLE DECISIONS EVER IN SCOTTISH FOOTBALL … NOT EVEN A BOOKING… “ DISGRACEFUL”
— JJW_1967 (@1967Jjw)
@AGCeltic_ Yeah all good.
It’s Rangers, they’re allowed the odd unpenalised assault. https://t.co/TX1d0M6HyX— CallMeBayGirl (@CallMeBayGirl)
@AGCeltic_ This Ryan Lee clown must be the most incompetent Ref to come through the SFA System an absolute Waaaaaarmer
— Robert Johnston (@RobertJ90427282)
@scotsunsport Luck isn’t the factor
Asking the public tae believe ryan lee n john beaton can be that incompetent to ignore this incident completely .
The question instead should be is wan sided incompetence possible or is it more likely fear an or bias is at the heart of this ?
— Terry O’Neill (@terryoneill67) November 1, 2026
Hunbelievable decision.
And on top of that uv got the perma tan man spouting in interview that Naderi’s ankle was smashed, it was a mess apparently, no idea why the ref wizny looking at that tackle..and yet.. there he is scoring the winner…
I feel sorry for whoever Sevco meet in the final, cos quite simply, they just ain’t gonna be allowed to win it, the hoardes must be given what they desire…the only way to victory for any team in that game would be to score 3 or 4 to eliminate MiB influence.
Just par for the course with a McInnes team, you will always have a few that will buy into his thuggery – in the 2 recent games against them Penrice and Ratkins ( I think) both deliberately smashed the ball at a fellow professionals head while they were lying on the ground. Absolutely no need for i! just them being horrible peepul !