This summit has the potential to make or break our game

SINISTER warnings, biting criticism, official club statements — and the threat of a referees strike looming large on the horizon.

If only we could get everyone involved together in one room. You know, bring refs and their union, managers and coaches, PFA Scotland, etc, together in a spirit of co-operation and camaraderie.

Well, Ian Maxwell gets credit for being ahead of the curve and seeing this crisis coming, at least.

The SFA chief executive’s planned summit, announced in early December but still only pencilled in for ‘some time in January’, now has the potential to make or break our game.

Do you think Scottish football can manage to limp along, just for another week or two, without pressing the well-thumbed self-destruct button?

The winter break gives us a chance, with the absence of top-flight fixtures reducing the number of potential rows liable to cause another flare-up. But nobody is offering any guarantees.

When Maxwell announced his plan to gather in the warring parties, he almost made it sound as if all we needed was some well-intentioned mediator asking: ‘Can we all just get along?’

Alas, a deteriorating mood in the intervening weeks means the meeting won’t quite be in the spirit of Rodney King’s famous plea for sanity. If anything, it may resemble a Godfather-style sitdown between the heads of the Five Families.

The first — and most important — point on the agenda, then, has to be aimed at taking the heat out of the current crisis.

And that starts by calmly and deliberately explaining the clear boundaries between criticism and abuse. So understand that there is only one reason why a person sends a threat to a referee — because said person is a criminal.

John Beaton wasn’t targeted by cowardly thugs because Chris Sutton complained about his decision-making.

He and his family have been threatened, a shameful reflection on our game and our society, because there are nutcases out there who believe in every photoshopped conspiracy they see on Twitter. If it reinforces their already deeply-held suspicions.

While we’re on it, those who insist that Sutton should be considered fair game for similar harassment, just because he occasionally offends from his position in the TV-pundit bully pulpit, really need to get a grip.

That this should crop up now all seems rather timely, doesn’t it?

Because, in the first weeks of 2019, Britain has become a country embroiled in a debate over whether intemperate words can actually lead to physical intimidation — or even violence.

Hang around Westminster, if you can tolerate being called all sorts by the tin-pot Mosleys in their high-viz vests, and you’ll understand that some halfwits need very little ‘provocation’ to tip them over the edge. But the notion of individual responsibility, of each man or woman being responsible for their own actions, cannot be entirely forgotten.

Yes, if a club actively urged supporters to start bombarding a referee with abuse, that would be beyond the pale. But it hasn’t come to that. Yet.

That’s not to say the mischiefmakers behind the always anonymous club statements should be let off the hook entirely. Celtic’s comments on Mr Beaton’s performance in the Old Firm game were as ill-advised as the Rangers missive about Willie Collum earlier in the season.

The fact so many supporters on either side would argue until the End of Days about the number of commas in the respective communiques, well, that’s just a symptom of far deeper problems.

Much will be made, of course, of managers’ comments on refs this season. You can guarantee that the get-together organised by Maxwell will feature pleas for greater respect and a more civilised tone.

Well, okay. But, in exchange, referees should have to take some responsibility for a half-season littered with epic misjudgments, high-handed dismissals of genuine concerns — and, in some cases, an absolute refusal to admit to human error.

Debates about the disciplinary system and the SFA compliance officer, about how and when players can be retrospectively punished, or whether certain managers are more likely to be pulled up than others, would all be far less frenzied if the men in black were better at their jobs. Or at least more willing to admit to their mistakes.

Until the summit, then. The nation’s top whistlers, face-toface with the gaffers.

If they let the TV cameras in and put it on pay-per-view, there’d probably be enough cash to implement VAR in time for next season.