The job of referee has a kind of inverse relationship between popularity and career progress. Willie Collum has been at the centre of this season’s three major controversies. He was referee on two occasions when his assistants failed to notice Celtic conceded a goal in crucial league games against Rangers and Hearts (on each occasion the ball crossed the line by inches and remained there for a small fraction of a second).
There is very little a ref can do when his assistant doesn’t flag when the ball crosses the goal line, as we all know, but Collum still suffered reputational damage from some who simply blamed him for being in charge when ‘goals’ against Celtic were not awarded by assistant referees.
It takes a brave decision for a ref to award an injury time penalty for a team losing by a goal in a cup final. As we noted yesterday, Anthony Stokes clearly had his ankle clipped when clean through with Cammy Bell to beat on Sunday while the Kilmarnock defender never came close to the ball. This was a foul any day of the week, but having been in charge when Celtic benefited from assistant referee decisions, Collum booked Stokes instead of awarding a penalty.
This incident was almost identical to Collum’s decision not to award Celtic a penalty in the infamous game away to Hamilton Accies in 2011. With five minutes of the game remaining Niall McGinn was tripped inside the box but Collum booked the player.
The offside rule was subject to a new and unique interpretation that day. Hamilton ‘scored’ from a set piece with a player alone inside the six yard box who jumped over the ball. He was in an offside position by several yards and stood in front of Fraser Forster before allowing the ball to pass under him. Collum also sent off James Forrest for blocking a clearance in an incident which caused a Hamilton player to kick his boot.
All of this followed the infamous incident at Celtic Park when despite looking the other way, Collum awarded Rangers a penalty when Kirk Broadfoot stumbled in the vicinity of Daniel Majstorovic.
Without enjoying the light of robust critical analysis of refereeing decisions that happens in most other countries I’m not sure where we go with any of this. Celtic Quick News called both ‘goal’ incidents against Rangers and Hearts as assistant referee mistakes so it is only appropriate we record Mr Collum’s significant mistakes when refereeing Celtic, while we ponder the formula for career progression among Scotland’s referees.
I know we covered the issue of Duff and Phelps needing to talk-up any possibility of nullifying Ticketus ownership of future season tickets, Craig Whyte’s security over Ibrox of HMRC being prepared to accept a few pennies in the pound (before HMRC issued a rare statement about the important of paying your tax, “football club or not”), so apologies for repeating myself, but….
Duff and Phelps have agreed no deal with HMRC. Ticketus retain ownership of future season tickets and the recent court challenge appears to offer little threat, while Craig Whyte retains his security. In addition, Duff and Phelps have received no offer for Rangers with terms which are within their control.
So, apart from having no offers they can accept, no stadium to sell, no control over future season ticket sales, no agreement with HMRC and having absolutely no idea what they will do when player contracts revert to their full value on 1 June, Duff and Phelps job is pretty easy.
Right now they need to keep all their plates in the air. The very least we should do is cut them some slack as they endeavour to work the angles.
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Great article Paul.
That clarified the position despite the constant litany from the ” it’ll be all right mob ” I wonder if the CH 4 man will seek the real source of funding that RFC enjoyed.
Nice sea air and views.
I had a wee chuckle this morning when I heard Gordon Smith on BBC Radio 2.
When he was director of football at Rangers, the former SFA chief executive didn’t know that Craig Whyte wasn’t paying the bills!
Nobody knew, except that evil genius Craig Whyte.
The same Craig Whyte who “duped” the poor, unworldly, Sir David Murray.
The same Craig Whyte who managed to bamboozle Scotland’s finest sports journalists into believing he was a billionaire.
Who is this Keyser Soze?
This Napoleon of financial prestidigitation?
This astucious winker of hoods? (thumbsup)
Now that the dust has settled after Sundays’ debacle, it was a pen and wee Willie
is a fud, but it should never have got to the stage where Celtic were relying on a pen
to take the game into extra time, the game should have been won in the first half.
Let’s hope our strikers are up to scratch at the midden on Sunday. What about
giving the new guy a run out?
gordon j backing lenny
would you prefer to watch eastenders than
have your country independent ?
shimmies33 on 20 March, 2012 at 12:28 said:
I tend to agree although he wasn’t at his best on Sunday he still put a shift in. The Killie goalie was in great form and he saved it. Hooper didn’t miss the target. We didn’t create enough chances. You can have the best striker in the world but if he doesn’t get the ball in front of goal it’s useless. I still can’t get over Sami not starting. Forrest should have been off at half time. Wanyama soon after and Rogne should never have left the field. If Hooper is fit Sunday he plays and he will score!
LB
god bless her majesty
s,revenue & customs
Lhads ,
I’m looking for some assistance from any of you boffins out there.
My son was a mascot at Sundays Cup Final.
I recorded the game on my Virgin box.
Is there any way to take the first few minutes
and get it onto a memory stick / dvd etc ?
Or can I do similar from another source ?
philvisreturns on 20 March, 2012 at 12:29 said:
I am Kaisersozay
K
gordon j
Cheers! Hoping for the best gift this Sunday. Fox (spit) are carrying the game in glorious HD.
HH buddy.
shimmies33 on 20 March, 2012 at 12:28 said:
Agree with you 100%
Gary’s first touch is too often followed by his second – a tackle! On Sunday however I think he gave his best out of box performance since signed.
How odd then that he missed the chance he’d put away 9 times out of 10 :-(
Rogne substitution:
Am I the only one who saw Thomas get clobbered (not maliciously) some moments before the substitution?
I took the substitution to be entirely based on that heavy collision. If otherwise then I’d agree it was a mistake.
ticgaz
I´ll email you the part where the mascots walk on until they run off.
Get my email address from Paul67
Hail Hail
Timabhouy,
Is that a new option on the ballot paper?
Aipple
Happy birthday!
That Fox channel…Is it a regular channel or PPV?
Trying to figure out if there is a sister station in Canada.
TAL
Aipple
Happy birthday!
There is no point in even trying to take that shambles seriously anymore.They are the most shameless bunch of toads on the face of this planet.
All they are is a laughing stock – their fans,their manager,their owner,their SFA,their referees,their Daily Record,their BBC Sport Scotland – the whole,sorry shebang.
More to be laughed at,than to be scorned.
Contemptable they are.
I would love to see the Celtic support all dress up as penguins,meerkats,rabbits,roosters,dogs,cartoon characters – even clowns,on Sunday – and just wave,point and laugh at them.
What else ca ya do?
They are a joke club,a Mickey Mouse outfit – and they should expect to be treated as such.
Timabhouy on 20 March, 2012 at 12:30 said:
gordon j backing lenny
would you prefer to watch eastenders than
have your country independent ?
…………….
Gordon is an Eastenders addict :-)
neveralone on 20 March, 2012 at 12:37 said:
He wasn’t given time to run it off? No player should be subbed that quickly.
Mulgrew has been one of our best CB’s all season and Ledley our best LB. Why play so many players out of their best positions?
Don’t like criticising our manager but some decisions on Sunday were baffling. Forrest was very poor but got to play left, right and through the middle. He is a winger and will have off days. Sunday was an off day and he should have been subbed at half time or soon after.
Wanyama had a poor match and was moved position to allow Ki to come on. No idea why that happened. Wanyama should have been going off. I love this big guy but he was poor on Sunday. We didn’t play great but the decisions from our coaches didn’t help. The Killie keeper was outstanding and had 3 quality saves. He should have had 30 though. We didn’t have enough chances.
LB
Gordon_J backing Neil Lennon – What would TV look like if Scotland was independent?
AM – Good Morning With The Krankies, followed by Lowse Weemenfowk
Lunchtime – Bargain Hun
Afternoon – Countdown (to bankruptcy)
Evening – Big Fat Airdrie Weddings, followed by Newsnicht
Midnight – Alex Salmond’s Late Call, followed by the national anthem and repeats of Weir’s Way
BTW for all the talk about the BBC’s quality output its programmes are mostly dreck. It should be liquidated like so many Rangerses.
There’s no need for State broadcasting in the 21st century, especially not for a State broadcaster to run over a dozen TV channels and have an effective monopoly on national radio. (thumbsup)
When you see how far Cammy Bell had rushed out on Hooper, a cool striker would have lobbed the ball straight over him into the empty net.
Easy to say after the event, mind you.
If he had scored that I’m sure we would have won easy.
Great Paul67
If in the unlikely event that HMRC were to agree a CVA would that include the Big Tax case bill (excluding fines) ?
Guys
The team at CQN Magazine require some assistance in the next few days, and I’m hoping some of you can help us out.
We’re trying to push forward with the print versions right now, as we still come across people who do not have access to the internet and have never heard of us or what we are trying to do. The online project has achieved a fantastic profile – averaging a million hits for the last four or five issues – but right now we are still very much a digital publication, and we’d like to grow beyond that, in order to achieve the kind of things we’d like … tackling the MSM more directly, CQN Radio. CQNTV etc …
What we’re looking for right now, essentially, is some help with the marketing strategy for this issue of the magazine. We’ve got a genuine shot at making this into something truly special and that is down to the guys on this site who have chipped in with articles, paid their subscriptions and bought issues, or basically did something as simple as read the magazine and recommended it.
The guys who have bought the magazine so far have enabled us to put together our biggest print run yet. The last few issues were a great success, they are now sold out, but this is a big one for all of us, and for the project as a whole.
We are about to print some flyers and redesign our e-advertising campaign, and what we’d like help with is the distribution of these. The flyers will be for supporters buses, essentially, as we see this as the best way to publicise it.
If anyone can help us out, and take some of the flyers for their buses, or even better, some magazines AND flyers, can they get in touch with Paul, at one of the usual email addresses?
Thanks again in advance guys, because the project is for you and about you, and its success will be your success. The Celtic online community is not simply punching above its weight right now but it is delivering knock out blows, day after day, to the people who thought their positions were gold plated, that their hold on the game was forever and that their influence over it was unchallengable.
They were wrong on all counts. We’re on the ascendancy.
kaisersozay – (does best Tony Curtis impression)
I’m Ticketus! (thumbsup)
greenjedi
does he have a cockney accent yet ?
innit gezzer !
Awe_Naw…
Thanks , appreciated.
Paul67 , could you do the biz please ?
Thanks
philvisreturns,
Big Fat Airdrie Weddings! There’s something to be missed. And wouldn’t the Krankies need a post watershed spot these day?
Hamiltontim, I hear you.
Mickthetic, without wanting to go over old ground….. in 2010 I said I had heard of more instances of referees reports being amended (on top of the one I produced) and asked for help to flush them out. For some reasons I seem to be parodied on other sites (and occasionally, sarcastically, on Twitter) as having said I had a “dossier” (the word was used by another site, who had heard Celtic had it, which I quickly established was not the case).
VertWolf, always on hand to assist my diction, thanks.
starry plough, indeed.
bournesouprecipe, well said.
Agent Craig “Green, I was prepared to be generous to Hearts. Mea Culpa.
TootingTim, cheers.
excathedra44, thanks.
From Garngad to Croy, not point avoiding the big tax case.
Teuchter ár lá
It is part of the sports package so not basic cable sadly, I think. Will double check when I get home and post back any findings.
Awe_Naw_No_Annoni_Oan_Anaw_Noo
Cheers buddy!
Hi Paul,
I posted on the last article on my appreciation of BRT&H’s excellent piece of Footballing governance that the Steven Craven conspiracy and post resignation whistle blowing was not investigated.
That Willie Collum penalty decision at Celtic Park was one incident that I had in mind.
I asked myself is the guy a cheat? Well I gave him the benefit of the doubt and said no, he’s not.
Then I had to reconcile this with the fact that he gave a crucial penalty that he could not possibly have seen, and in fact it was a dive, no way a penalty.
I went back and read Steven Craven’s mea culpa in the Sunday Mail, he suggested that there was certain pressures put on officials in the SPL, the examples he gave was when he failed to penalise Celtic he was marked down, he was also marked down when R@ngers were incorrectly penalised.
The logical conclusion, don’t give Celtic the benefit of any doubt, and make sure R@ngers get everything coming their way.
Rather than edicts going out to officials to cheat it was more of a Dog whistle.
When Mr Collum failed to see the incident in the Home Box at Celtic Park during the Glasgow Derby he was under the pressure that Mr Craven describes, that had got him into so much hot water at Tannadice.
Willie Collum didn’t cheat he was unsure, he had failed to see an important incident so made the default decision.
How you prove something this subtle goes on I don’t know but over the course of a Season it makes a decisive points difference.
gordon backing lenny
not unless the unionist partys
wish to scaremonger us anymore
than they do,
im sure the unionist partys will want it on the
ballot paper !
Paul, that Hamilton game still really annoys me! Not only was
1) their goal offside
2) Forrest should never have been SO
3) McGinn was clear pen
4) goal disallowed (correctly) by linesman who missed offside. And
5) their goal scored by guy who failed drugs test one week before game only to have ban allowed to start after Celtic game!
SffS
Paul67,
So, apart from having no offers they can accept…
…what about the 4 empty Irn Bru bottles that was reported in the Guardian???
Gordon_J backing Neil Lennon – And wouldn’t the Krankies need a post watershed spot these day?
At least we now know what fan-dabby-dozy means. (thumbsup)
Paul67
I wasn’t being critical just interested if you had deliberately constructed your headline to put out different mesaages to different readers!
You know I understand how careful you need to be
VertWolf
LiviBhoy on 20 March, 2012 at 12:41 said:
Don’t really disagree with you but it may depend upon what type of injury it was I guess. Head or back knocks not for running off I don’t think!
Don’t understand what happened to Vic & Joe – they seemed to get in each others way. Thought Vic was better when he went back tho I still cant see what Kelvin brings to the party. Vic’s lay off to Stokes for the eventual non-penalty was however sublime!
Pity we stumbled through this game when decisiveness was what was required.
But as I posted yesterday – lots of young people learning.
Someone has come in with a 5th bid for rangers,personilywould like to see some investment into my club ,we need more quality in our team.and for the life of me i cant understand lenny signing players and for them not to get a game ,or are they in his words about rasmusson no better than a pub team.which i thought was very ignorant coming from him.
shimmies
Hooper takes a fair amount of criticism on here.
I agree about Sunday that he was one of the better players.
Contrary to popular opinion he did not miss as the goalie made a good save.
His link up play was excellent.
I think he is a star and wish he had a partner with same awareness and selfless approach to the team.
Our system was to me the problem forcing him to come to deep as our movement was of the sideways and backwards variety.