VAR in Scottish Football

[Cptn Hooch]

9 hours ago, lennyzer0 said:

Maybe get some not from the west side of Scotland, for a start.

Even worse that they allow a ref who's brother played for (an earlier version of) rangers to referee the game at the weekend

[Melanius Mullarkey]

9 hours ago, VincentGuerin said:

St Johnstone v Livi, refereed by Carly Simon

Nobody does it better tbf.

[craigkillie]

2 hours ago, Cptn Hooch said:

Even worse that they allow a ref who's brother played for (an earlier version of) rangers to referee the game at the weekend

His brother was with Rangers, Motherwell, Falkirk, Dundee United, Ross County, Hibs, Dumbarton, Morton and Clyde, and his dad played over 500 games for Killie, so that's a lot of teams he wouldn't be able to referee, especially if you factor in their rivals too.

[Dundee Hibernian]

16 hours ago, billyg said:

About 15 years ago St Mirren played a replayed cup tie at Tannadice . The appointed ref was Alan Freeland who I believe was from the Tayside area. Wee Gus came out and said to the SFA ,  "we're not playing the game with him in charge as there will be local bias " ! SFA said no , and Freeland reffed the game , in the process he gave St Mirren everything and we won. Maybe it's time for some clubs to call out certain referees officially , get it out in the open , let the refs know officially that people are suspicious and they're being watched , not just on social media. 

Freeland lived around 70 miles away from Tannadice and Tayside, he is from the Aberdeen. I can't recall if Freeland gave St Mirren everything in that game, but he did ignore an obvious offside at the winning goal for Saints.

I put it down to him being a useless official rather than any bias caused by Gus MacPherson. 

VAR wouldn't have changed things in that game possibly, as VAR is being abused inconsistently.

[Dons_1988]

I think we have an issue with different standards of refereeing for two clubs but:

- I don’t think it comes from refs supporting teams, it comes from the pressures and environment of Scottish football

- digging up referees upbringings and backgrounds and who their family support etc is intrusive and exactly the kind of behaviour that leads to us spending millions on a technology we all hate. 
 

[VincentGuerin]

1 hour ago, Dons_1988 said:

I think we have an issue with different standards of refereeing for two clubs but:

- I don’t think it comes from refs supporting teams, it comes from the pressures and environment of Scottish football

- digging up referees upbringings and backgrounds and who their family support etc is intrusive and exactly the kind of behaviour that leads to us spending millions on a technology we all hate. 
 

It's also completely pointless.

Your average paranoid fan would simply not believe the refs.

And, probably with good reason. The Celtic-supporting ref on Off the Ball last season mentioned that he'd spent his refereeing career pretending to support Dumbarton to colleagues etc. (Conroy?) Everyone would just do that as it would be career suicide to limit your career by declaring you supported a Big Team. You'd get fewer big games, cup finals etc, and probably through that be less likely to end up UEFA or FIFA etc.

It would just be a waste of time and exacerbate the existing problems around paranoia.

[Dons_1988]

1 hour ago, VincentGuerin said:

It's also completely pointless.

Your average paranoid fan would simply not believe the refs.

And, probably with good reason. The Celtic-supporting ref on Off the Ball last season mentioned that he'd spent his refereeing career pretending to support Dumbarton to colleagues etc. (Conroy?) Everyone would just do that as it would be career suicide to limit your career by declaring you supported a Big Team. You'd get fewer big games, cup finals etc, and probably through that be less likely to end up UEFA or FIFA etc.

It would just be a waste of time and exacerbate the existing problems around paranoia.

Completely, let’s be honest vilification and suspicion around refs just perpetuates the cycle. This is from fans, clubs, media and any other stakeholder that engages in it. 

There needs to be a grown up conversation. The statistics around rangers penalties is laughable and is worthy of a genuine adult discussion but the nature of the debate disallows it. 

But taking a further step back, all those stakeholders should really reflect on how much influence refereeing decisions make on the outcome of a season, particularly in a league season. I genuinely don’t think it’ll be much. 

[Zamora Fan]

On 12/11/2023 at 20:29, parsforlife said:

Aye, numbers is always a massive factor in being able to find to best and we’re struggling to get enough numbers to even cover games nevermind be able to filter some out.

How do you improve that?  Pay? Being a ref isn’t a terrible wee earner at amateur and at pro level whilst you’ll walk away with less than the players we are far closer in proportion to what the big leagues pay, we’re maybe paying refs 40-50% of players, top leagues it’s closer to 4-5%

You then have culture which is a big turn off too many, it’s simply too easy to abuse/ assault referees and they end up thinking f**k this well before any potential can develop even if they choose to try in the first place.

So we’re left with training of those who are active, now I don’t have any details of this and certainly can’t compare our training vs other FAs but when the best it can be is a part-time profession how much time can we dedicate to this?

One scheme I’d like implemented is for every club to put someone through the course every season, but that’s more aimed at improving player/ref relationships. Would you get buy in from the clubs for that? Doubtful

Clubs should put their young players through refereeing training then get them reffing youth games etc as part of their footballing apprenticeship. That would breed a completely different attitude to refs from the next generation of players 

And given most of them likely won't make it as pro players ... maybe some of them would opt to become refs instead

As it currently is shortages in the number of refs is going to become a huge problem in the next few years I reckon.

[lennyzer0]

On 13/11/2023 at 13:56, DA Baracus said:

Would it make a difference? There's folk from all over Scotland who support Celtic or Sevco.

Fair point. But it does seem a bit odd that all the 'top' refs are from the west.

[lennyzer0]

On 13/11/2023 at 14:03, craigkillie said:

I don't know exactly who is from where, but I'm sure was a list posted on here at one point not that long ago which showed that Glasgow and Lanarkshire were certainly well-represented, but that there were people from the east and a handful from the north too.

I checked yesterday with a mate who works with refs for the SFA as part of his job. He says every single top level ref in Scotland is from the west side of Scotland.

Didn't used to be the case, but off the top of my head Calum Murray was the last Edinburgh based ref.

[billyg]

On 13/11/2023 at 17:36, well again said:

Calling out referees is not a new thing , Celtic have been doing it for years with a fair amount of success.

 You may be correct , but I don't recall them doing what St Mirren did  and actually approach the SFA and ask for a certain ref to be taken off a certain game ?

[The Master]

On 13/11/2023 at 14:00, VincentGuerin said:

St Johnstone v Livi, refereed by Carly Simon

With Warren Beatty on VAR. 

After being referred to the monitor for the 10th time in the first half, an exasperated Simon yells into the mic "I bet you think this game is about you". 

[Derry Alli]

On 13/11/2023 at 21:10, well again said:

Celtic fans can't handle the truth.

Or any implements to wash themselves with.

[HibsFan]

I think my position of calling the referees c***s and at the same time accepting they are c***s who make mistakes is a morally consistent one.

[Dons_1988]

https://news.stv.tv/sport/three-premiership-calls-deemed-incorrect-by-var-independent-review-panel
 

just going to leave this here. With regards from bojan:

 

[The Master]

That raises questions about the SFA's "Judicial Panel" that rejected Dundee's appeal against Josh Mulligan's red card.

I'd like to hope we'll be putting an entry into the statement league to say that we've "written to the SFA for clarification". 

[craigkillie]

It's a subjective decision, where one referee (the VAR) and one group of independent experts (the VAR review panel) thought there was enough evidence to overturn the red card, while another referee (the on-field ref) and another group of independent experts (the SFA disciplinary panel) thought there wasn't.

This is the whole issue with trying to re-referee clearly subjective decisions.

[VincentGuerin]

15 minutes ago, Dons_1988 said:

https://news.stv.tv/sport/three-premiership-calls-deemed-incorrect-by-var-independent-review-panel
 

just going to leave this here. With regards from bojan:

 

What have you done?

St Mirren fans incoming.

[Dons_1988]

Just now, VincentGuerin said:

What have you done?

St Mirren fans incoming.

 Just launching the buddies grenade then heading to the pub tbh 

[VincentGuerin]

1 minute ago, Dons_1988 said:

 Just launching the buddies grenade then heading to the pub tbh 

Arsehole. I've got to sit here waiting for my meeting to finish.