Forget more pow-wows... we need review into ref failures
THE very mention of the word ‘summit’ when it comes to Scottish football is enough to bring you out in hives. If it’s plenty talking and precious little action you’re after, we are top of the pile in the FIFA rankings, all right. With Derek McInnes and Jack Ross now just two Premiership managers calling for another grand sitdown on refereeing — in the mistaken idea it will make some kind of difference, one assumes — it is perhaps a good time to reflect, once again, on what exactly came to pass the last time the SFA brains trust cobbled one together.
All and sundry decided that VAR would be a good idea. What was done about it? Nothing.
Brendan Rodgers led the call for full-time referees. What was done about it? Nothing.
Who represented the men and women in black that night at McDiarmid Park in January 2019 to re-establish respect between managers and match officials? Yes, that’s right. John Beaton.
The same John Beaton now about as welcome in dug-outs the length and breadth of Scotland as a snake in a soft-play area.
Steven Gerrard certainly didn’t miss him in the statement that came out of Ibrox on Friday. That’ll be his name getting scratched out of the tick book for good in the Rangers boozer he was photographed in a few years ago. John Beaton Loyal no more.
Let’s be honest. That meeting in Perth, where Beaton was flanked by Andrew Dallas and Kevin Clancy, was just a box-ticking exercise aimed at quelling the incessant criticism of flaky officiating and an even flakier compliance system.
It worked, too. For a while. But it didn’t make the problems go away. As recent months have shown.
Having been slaughtered for his attitude already this season by former Ross County gaffer Stuart Kettlewell and Robbie Neilson at Hearts, Beaton, one of our most prominent officials, is certainly storing up problems for himself.
While Gerrard could certainly have comported himself better at half-time at Livingston on Wednesday, Beaton’s approach of blanking people and then sending them off for taking offence is hardly a good look either.
From what McInnes and Ross say, though, he is far from alone in that behaviour. He is certainly far from alone in getting clear calls monumentally wrong.
The latest was the decision to book Alfredo Morelos for diving at Livi when he had been clipped by keeper Max Stryjek. It was a stonewall penalty, as the Colombian’s subsequent appeal confirmed.
Look, it is possible to see why Beaton got it wrong. What isn’t acceptable is linesman Frank Connor managing to miss it too.
Yet, this is a recurring theme with officials across the land. We could draw up a list as long as your arm of shocking tackles — real nasty ones — that have gone unpunished this term even when they have clearly been seen.
St Mirren manager Jim Goodwin has also been vocal on diving and the number of soft penalties being awarded — including one that gave his own team a win last weekend.
Hamilton boss Brian Rice says he doesn’t want to say anything about referees because he doesn’t want hammered while Graham Alexander, just in the door at Motherwell, has already been reduced to acting like a petulant child in interviews because, by the looks of things, he can’t bring himself to discuss them.
That we are back here so soon is a major issue if not exactly a surprise.
Some new officials have come online since that McDiarmid Park pow-wow. There is a different head of refereeing in Crawford Allan as well, but he has the public visibility of the average KGB operative.
Ian Maxwell, the SFA’s chief executive, has broken cover to witter on about VAR again, saying he is interested in trialling a stripped-back version.
It is impossible not to glaze over listening to him, though. If Maxwell really was eager to lead from the front and find solutions, he would allow some kind of independent review — led by fresh eyes — into a refereeing department that so many top-division players and coaches clearly don’t have confidence in.
It still has the feel of a closed shop. Ex-refs from within the system protecting current ones. Ex-refs from within the system forming these three-man panels that shape the disciplinary set-up. And no real explanations for anything.
Allan and his department have been protected by the fact there hasn’t been a title race this season. If Celtic and Rangers were neck-and-neck, as they will be again some time in the future, there would be hell to pay right now.
Buzzkiller or not, the game here needs VAR of some sort. It needs higher standards whether through full-time referees or not. And it clearly needs someone from outside the circle spelling out some home truths.
It doesn’t need another talking shop asking everyone to stop being beastly to each other. We tried that. And here we are going round the mulberry bush again.