Reffing Hell!

Ah, the latest (in a long line) of refereeing controversies.  Where do I start…

It would be nice to think that Celtic’s motives were honest and all for the good of Scottish Football.  But they are not.  I can think of at least 3 very poor refereeing decisions which went for Celtic and against my own team (St Mirren) in recent years – for the record those decisions are Nakamura falling over to get a free kick at Love Street in the February 2008 fixture, the sending off of Haining and the award of a penalty for his challenge with Venegoor of Hesselink in the opening game of the 2008/09 game, and the non punishment of Artur Boric for flattening Dargo in Celtic’s last visit to Love Street.

Instead, Celtic’s complaints rather smack of petulance.  This is a pity because Celtic’s stance obscure’s the fact that the current crop of referees are not very good.  The criticism of Willie Collum after the last Old Firm game was that he gave a penalty for Rangers, when Broadfoot dived.  It seems to have bypassed these critics that referees are not particularly good at picking up dive’s, not least Collum who failed to curb Hamilton Accies players lack of balance the week before.  They are even less inclined to punish dives, Stephen Naismith being the latest to commit that particular sin…

Not that referees are 100% to blame for their failings.  In most games I see nowadays, the referee makes the majority of decisions unaided by his linesmen.  In no sense of the word do the majority of linesmen deserve the term “Assistant Referees”.  This season seems to be some sort of nadir, with linesmen unable to ascertain who’s throw in it should be, even though I and the people sitting next to me can see precisely who’s throw in it should be from the back of the stand.  Some sort of training or testing initiative should be the SFA’s response.  However I'm not holding my breath, after all the SFA have form in going down the inactivity route.