CLEAR AS MUD
Game needs refs to speak up, says Deila
RONNY DEILA last night insisted Scottish football would benefit if referees gave a public explanation of their decisions after matches.
The Celtic manager stressed he still had a positive view of officiating in this country despite the Josh Meekings hand-ball debacle that helped kill his Treble dream last weekend.
But Deila has called for similar transparency as in his Norwegian homeland, arguing that referees facing the media would help quell longrunning furores and improve relationships.
Celtic wrote to the SFA in the aftermath of last weekend’s defeat to Inverness Caley, seeking ‘to understand’ how referee Steven McLean and his assistants failed to act on the Meekings
incident. ‘When my team has a bad performance, I have to stand in front of newspapers and everybody,’ said Deila. ‘If it’s good, it’s good. If it’s bad, it’s bad, but I have to stand up to it. I can’t understand what the problem is with the referees doing it as well. ‘They could say: “I made a bad mistake. I’m so sorry. I’m irritated at myself. I should have done it better. I should learn from this”. What could you say after that? ‘It’s not important for me to speak with the referee. It’s the Press. If the Press has a question for me and I say “no comment”, it never stops. If I say what I think, then you move on. ‘It would be good for referees. We all know they will make mistakes in the future and do good and bad things. ‘We will do the same, but to be open and honest gets you much more respect. You have to be able to handle it through good times and bad times. ‘If they shut themselves away, you don’t get answers and that’s why we are writing a letter to them asking what happened. ‘What’s the problem? More and more in Norway, the referees speak to the media after the match.’ Speaking in December, Deila said Scottish referees had been ‘fantastic’ since he came to Celtic and that he had encountered more problems in European matches. ‘I haven’t changed my mind,’ he insisted. ‘You see mistakes all over Europe and I think the referees here have been good. ‘It’s just afterwards there are a lot of things. So many meetings, appeals, I can’t understand that system. But that’s not up to me, it’s up to others.’ Referees have performances evaluated by assessors but Deila feels it would be better if they came under a more public disciplinary system similar to managers and players. ‘I think it is strange that we have to do it and not the referees,’ he added. ‘We are all one unit — football. I think it should be the same rules for everybody. ‘If my players are not performing well, then I talk with them. And the solution might be that they are out of the team. ‘How do you punish a referee? You could give another referee a chance instead. ‘In Norway, referees get banned as well. They get told they have to go down to the first division for a couple of matches or have a week off and then come back again. I think that is made public.’