Home and away our rotten refs keep blundering on

THE current crop of Scottish referees are hopeless. Were Craig Joubert parachuted into their ranks, he could hardly do any worse. Harsh? Let’s consider the evidence. Last Sunday, Alan Muir handled Celtic’s league match with Motherwell at Fir Park. An uncompromising first-half challenge by Stephen Pearson on Efe Ambrose was a yellow card minimum. Borderline red. No card was administered. Fir Park defender Kieran Kennedy then lunged into a challenge on Scott Brown before handling a Kris Commons header moments later. No penalty was given for either. Fast forward 48 hours to events at Ibrox and it took less than a minute for Andrew Dallas — the son of UEFA’s head of referees — to distinguish himself. Some Celtic supporters believe the media reporting of the tackle by Livingston midfielder Kieran Gibbons on Rangers winger Nathan Oduwa has been excessive. Lee McCulloch, former captain of the Ibrox club, they argue, got away with crimes against humanity for years with barely a fraction of the fuss. The difference is this. Rangers manager Mark Warburton made Oduwa a story by removing him at half-time and calling afterwards for referees to protect flair players. That the on-loan Spurs winger plays for Rangers is neither here nor there. The real concern is that a studs-high, dangerous challenge took place in the first minute of a Petrofac Training Cup game in front of the referee. Again, no card. The repercussions of that negligence were far-reaching and ugly. Defending Gibbons on Radio Clyde, Livvy manager Mark Burchill used ill-advised words and ended up apologising for alleged anti-English xenophobia. Wars have started over less than this. Why? Because another Scottish referee failed to do his job. The SFA can’t throw their officials under a bus like World Rugby did with Joubert. They would have another strike on their hands. But let’s not pretend, as the governing body do, that the presence of two of our men at elite UEFA level is a sign of high standards. This week, Craig Thomson failed to red card Borussia Monchengladbach’s Alvaro Dominguez for denying Juventus a clear goalscoring opportunity in the Champions League game. And then there is Willie Collum (left) — a man told to ‘stick to wearing a kilt’ by a former Turkish official following his handling of the Galatasaray-Benfica game on Wednesday. You don’t have to be Scottish to be a rotten referee. But right now, it definitely helps.