LEE: IT’S NOW TIME FOR FULL-TIME REFEREES

Rangers were hard done by with Daniel Candeias decision, but part-time refs are simply poor rather than biased

THERE are a lot of decisions that have gone against Rangers in recent times that I can fully understand the club being upset about. But, being perfectly honest, there were probably one or two we got at Ibrox when I was playing that we shouldn’t have got too.

So, I don’t think there is any great conspiracy against the club or that there are referees out there who have any sort of agenda against Rangers, or any other club for that matter.

That being said, there is quite clearly an issue when it comes to the standard of refereeing in this country, and I don’t think they help themselves in a lot of ways.

Some of them, not all of them, are simply not fit enough for starters, and I think it would help both the officials and the Scottish game immensely if we could find some way to make referees full-time.

These are part-time referees trying to keep up with full-time athletes, so they are going to get decisions wrong and, in that regard, I feel a degree of sympathy for them.

On the other hand, though, there are some referees who seem to continually be at the centre of one controversy or another, and seem to consistently get high-profile decisions wrong.

The cloak of secrecy surrounding referees does them no favours either because, like in the Daniel Candeias incident at St Mirren, it is never fully explained what the offence actually is or why the referees arrived at their decision. And, of course, there is never any notion of holding their hands up and admitting a mistake, and that just frustrates everybody further.

I’m not blaming the referees for that. They aren’t allowed to come out and say anything, but I think that a change in tack and making referees more personable and more human to both players and supporters would go a long way to helping get rid of this “them and us” mentality that exists at the moment.

The referees have been

extremely poor this season. If you are a player and you have been extremely poor, then you are told and you are dropped, whereas there appears to be no ramifications for referees who consistently get major decisions wrong.

Something has got to change and, in my book, the authorities have to find a way to fund full-time referees for the good of our game.

Some of these decisions are affecting careers and are game-changing. The livelihoods of full-time professionals are in the hands of part-time referees, and I just don’t get it.

If we want to progress the game here and have it taken seriously, then we need to have full-time referees. It is holding the game back and is damaging the reputation of Scottish football.

Down south, of course, they have much more money than we have up here, but they have a much higher standard of referee in England because they are full-time.

When we are talking about things such as video assitant referees (VAR) being introduced and making a case for extra expenditure to get the technology in place, then I just think investing any money we have to make the actual referees themselves full-time and therefore raise their standard would be money better spent.

Imagine we had a scenario where our referees were working every single day to become better at their jobs? They could be analysing their decisions on a Monday morning, rather than going away to their work and forgetting about it until the next weekend.

Rangers have felt the need to single out Willie Collum and raise concerns over his performances. The club will have their reasons for that but, while I’m not one to single out referees for criticism, what I will also say is that certain referees don’t do themselves any favours with their manner.

You get some who are aggressive, sprinting over at you and treating you like a schoolboy, and that type of conduct only infuriates players more. Particularly from referees who are making mistakes.

Willie has made a lot of high-profile errors, and every referee makes mistakes. But I think that players especially would be a lot more understanding of that if they were treated with a little respect by these officials. It’s a two-way street, after all.

I will, however, single out a referee for praise. I like Steven McLean – the best referee in the country in my book. He’s calm, composed, really fit, has a bit of banter with the boys, and for that he gets respect. He is approachable and you can speak to him.

He is the exception, unfortunately, rather than the rule.

If we want to progress the game we need to have full-time referees