Willie Collum

[andy steel 0]

It's a dreadful piece. They must have been desperate for filler, I suppose, which when you consider the positive story of Andy Murray, tells you all you need to know about the paper in question.

 

I may have missed something but I don't remember Collum being especially biased toward 'them.' Given the performance of his colleagues, I suppose he doesn't have to be!

[metlika 0]

I don't really care, as most, if not all SPL refs are crap.

 

The report in that article is so bad, insulting in aspects.

[Zappa 0]

Andy, the latest Collum controversy was when he sent Graham Gartland off in the first two seconds of the second half of the St Johnstone v Celtic game for a foul on the edge of the box on Marc-Antoine Fortune. Collum's ass is covered for the decision because by the letter of the rule book he was entitled to send the player off, but the controversy is about the fact that many referees (maybe even most) would have been more lenient in this exact situation and simply given a foul with at the most a warning for the player rather than a second yellow card. The decision handed the game to Celtic because there's no way the Saints were going to hold on to their 1-0 lead for over 45 mins. They held on for a while, but couldn't be expected to even manage a draw after seconds of the 2nd half getting under way and IIRC ended up losing 4 goals.

[andy steel 0]

Fair enough, I didn't watch or listen to that game so I DID miss that. But if he was correct according to the rules, shouldn't we be looking at the other refs for NOT sticking to the rules?

[Zappa 0]

But if he was correct according to the rules, shouldn't we be looking at the other refs for NOT sticking to the rules?

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Well, more consistency in the refereeing decisions would obviously be fair and that's why there's controversy over guys like Collum being allowed the opportunity to make big, potentially game changing decisions in Rangers & Celtic SPL fixtures. Celtic may well have won that fixture in Perth anyway, but with 11 men on the park there's always the chance that the Saints could have held on to their 1-0 HT lead and scraped a win or lost a goal, but held on for a 1-1 draw. There's no telling, but to go back to your question again, I'd say no, not in terms of dishing out cards. Referees need to show some common sense with their application of the rules and not be dishing out yellow cards like there's no tomorrow. In most cases they do exactly that & generally hold off on giving out cards until they have no choice because of reckless/dangerous challenges or disciplinary issues such as fights breaking out etc, otherwise most games would be down to 8 or 9 a side by half time or one side down to 6 men while the other has 11.

 

Having said all that, I was watching the Inter v AC Milan derby this week & the mad referee showed a straight red card to Inter's Wesley Sneijder early in the game simply for clapping his hands in a sarcastic display that he didn't agree with the ref's decision. There was no abusive language or anything like that, just a sarcastic gesture which sometimes riles refs into showing a yellow card, but this ref either lost the plot or pulled out the wrong card & just went with it because he gave the lad a straight red & sent him packing. So, my point is that it's not just in Scotland that we have refs making poor decisions & it's not just here that their decision making can be controversial.

[metlika 0]

Sneijder did make some comments as well, but his sarcastic clapping didn't help.

[Zappa 0]

Sneijder did make some comments as well, but his sarcastic clapping didn't help.

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He didn't look as if he was being aggressive or abusive though, so it looked like a very unfair sending off to me. Yellow card maybe, but not a straight red.

[craig 5,199]

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An unbiased article on someone like Collum might have touched on the question of whether it's actually appropriate for a RC RE teacher to be refereeing at a Celtic game at all in the SPL given that there's a 99.9% chance that he'll be wanting Celtic to win....

 

But this part just exacerbates the problem. Just because he is a RC RE teacher and probably supports Celtic it doesn't (or at least shouldnt) make a difference to his refereeing ability. These refs (ALL of them), despite whatever allegiances they have, should have professional pride in getting decisions correct. It really should be that simple.

[rbr 1,247]

I got this via Broadfoot , not directly I hasten to add , but since he went to the SFA all he has done is put out fires , all is not well on a number of fronts , interesting times at Hampden

[Zappa 0]

But this part just exacerbates the problem. Just because he is a RC RE teacher and probably supports Celtic it doesn't (or at least shouldnt) make a difference to his refereeing ability. These refs (ALL of them), despite whatever allegiances they have, should have professional pride in getting decisions correct. It really should be that simple.

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It should be that simple, but in Scotland it's definitely not that simple! Maybe it would be that simple if we weren't brought up in a segregated society, but we are & Collum teaches RE in the largest RC high school in Lanarkshire where the vast majority of pupils interested in football are Celtic fans, with a very small number maybe being Motherwell fans. His day job almost certainly raises an issue as to whether he should be an SPL referee even if only due to the fact that it's undoubtedly going to cause controversy no matter whether he can perform the duty without bias or not.