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Date: 15th September 2024
Willie Collum is nice…shocker…
One of the nicest things to have emerged recently – I use the word nice, advisedly – is the sight of Willie Collum.
Seriously.
His wee video of honest appraisal over recent referee decisions was something I thought was refreshing and innovative. To be fair, I bet you never thought those words would be in the same sentence as Willie Collum…
There does seem to be a change in the way that refereeing is being supported in this country and whilst we are always good at criticising people, we should never shy away from praising them when justified.
Refereeing is a tough job. I know, not because I have ever been one, but I was a work colleague of two former referees. When I spoke to both they had tales to tell of abuse and “banter” that were hard to listen to. They had put themselves in the firing line and been quite simply physically threatened because of that.
However, both also spoke of a passion for the game and when Willie Young spoke at Ayr United’s centenary dinner, I was struck by his remark that it was one way you could end up in a game at Real Madrid without the ability of a Ronaldo or a Beckham. If you stuck in at it, the rewards were there.
Over the last few months, the Scottish Football Supporter’s Association have been running recruitment ads and supporting the recruitment of match officials for a reason – we need them to run the game properly. Without them there is no game, so we need to get better at recruiting, retaining and training them. Collum’s new initiative is, therefore, part of a welcome process.
Some, however, are still not quite enamoured by our men in black. Craig Levein for one. Apparently, he has “breached the SFA’s rules by questioning the integrity of the refereeing process.” His crime was to suggest that one decision made against St. Johnstone in their defat against Motherwell was to be “swept under the carpet”.
This has been compounded by the fall out around their loss in the League Cup against Rangers when Cyriel Dessers scored for the Glasgow club, but people believed that the referee had blown for a free kick beforehand; he hadn’t. To be fair to the Perth club, they accepted that – though evidence was provided to show they couldn’t argue…
Except Levein is still sure it was the wrong decision – letting the goal stand for Rangers.
Levein has a hearing set for later this month and will be asked, no doubt to explain his comments which were, when asked if he had asked for clarification from the referee after the latest incident – “Have I spoken to the ref? What’s the point? Seriously, what’s the point. After the Rangers debacle you know what’s going to happen. It’ll be swept under the carpet.”
My mature years would suggest a couple of things. Firstly, is bringing people into Hampden the best way to deal with this? I have been involved in a couple of these conflicts and though they were some time ago, don’t think there has been a radical rethink of them. Football people are up against a lawyer. It’s an unequal task to try and defend yourself against someone who has trained to win. Justice is not really on anyone’s side. And if, like the manager of a Premiership club, you can afford a lawyer to go into the process with you, and defend you against the compliance officer, what cost is it? The only people who would appear to win are… the lawyers.
To be fair, it is hardly their fault, but I do think there must be a better process.
Secondly, is it really that bad, what he said? Are we really that thin skinned that criticism cannot be shouldered and washed off? I am sure that, even if it was said long after the game and when tempers were cooler, that the criticism could be dealt with by a phone call, a chat, a meeting, or simply an invite in to talk it through and make sure nobody ends up in a costly process. But then again, I am applying mature thinking.
What Collum has done is begin a process, I believe of changing the way we view our officials, not by trying to do it head on, but trying to find new ways of supporting them – and criticising them if needed. Referees actually are human. And if we want less abuse in the game all over then what he has begun is a start. But to be better at doing this, we also need to find a way of making it the beginning and not the end of innovation. At some point it will go wrong and somebody somewhere shall get the hump, but we need to support it to try and get it part and parcel of a dialogue – a mature, helpful and supportive one so that we have match officials in the games where we can trust their judgement and they can be safe in the knowledge they shall not get too much abuse.
Posted in: Latest News, Refereeing
Tags: #VAR, Refereeing, Scottish football, SFA