Steven McLean says Scottish Cup final is pinnacle of referee's career

[ian1964 10,483]

Referee Steven McLean says he is honoured to be given the opportunity to officiate at this weekend's Scottish Cup final between Rangers and Hibernian at Hampden Park.

 

The FIFA official, who was in charge of the Scottish League Cup final between Aberdeen and Inverness CT two years ago, says lessons learned from a match at the National Stadium last season will stand him in good stead this Saturday, live on Sky Sports.

 

McLean was the man in the middle during the 2015 Scottish Cup semi-final between Celtic and Inverness when Caley's Josh Meekings handled the ball on the line but neither a penalty nor a red card were awarded.

 

Inverness went on to win the game 3-2 and advance to the final where they beat Falkirk 2-1.

 

Speaking to Sky Sports Scotland, McLean says: "This is absolutely massive. It is the pinnacle for any Scottish referee.

 

"It's a great privilege, a great honour and it's a special match so I am absolutely delighted to be appointed to this fixture.

 

"The League Cup final was a special occasion as well but everybody wants the Scottish. It's the big one. It's going to be a great occasion, a great experience and one I am very much looking forward to."

 

Asked if the match affords him the chance to atone for his error during last year's semi-final, he added: "Of course. We learn from all experiences.

 

"Obviously that was an incident that was missed, it was disappointing on the day and I take ultimate responsibility for it. But we have a referee team and we share responsibility so its important that we learn from those incidents.

 

"But we use our experiences from both positive incidents and negative incidents just to move forward and use it as a learning opportunity and hopefully I have used that in the last season to perform well.

 

"I had a really consistent performance level this season and I think I have benefitted from all my experiences in my career and that is what has enabled us to be in this position."

 

http://www.skysports.com/football/news/13869/10286098/steven-mclean-says-scottish-cup-final-is-pinnacle-of-referees-career

[Frankie 8,193]

McLean isn't bad but I just hope we're not talking about the referee after the game.

[Tannochsidebear 2,322]

McLean has had countless really bad games in charge of us, with some decisions so obviously wrong it appears to be cheating.

 

I dont recall any really bad decisions going in our favour from him.

 

Hopefully he is totally anonymous on Saturday, then he will have had a great game. His track record doesnt suggest that.

[MacK1950 2,253]

He will have FIVE assistants with him so hopefully!!!!! but really worry when Madden is one of them specsavers right enough.

[Tannochsidebear 2,322]

He will have FIVE assistants with him so hopefully!!!!! but really worry when Madden is one of them specsavers right enough.

 

Unless the assistants have the balls to overrule him when he gets it wrong it doesn't matter how many of them there are!

[Bearman 9]

I recall the handball in that Cup semi, it was missed because of players being in certain positions blocking ALL the officials view of it.

 

It was quite a freakish moment, you couldn't say the ref made a mistake or blundered, just fate really which had me dancing in the streets of Perth, a family weekend break on that occasion.

 

I have never seen that happen before where an obvious hand ball was seen by everyone in the ground and on tv yet was genuinely missed by the guys in control of the game.

 

I'm quite happy with McLean in charge on Saturday, if history repeats itself with him on the whistle then he's one unlucky bassa.