st mirren have asked for alan freeland to be removed from officiating their scottish cup replay against dundee utd. quite right too. he's mince. st mirren fear that he could influence the match against them. freeland hasn't managed a st mirren game since last season when gus macpherson made after match comments regarding his performance. there was also an altercation between the two when freeland was acting as the fourth official when they played falkirk eleven months ago. the SFA have refused to entertain st mirren's appeal. on sunday i watched the aberdeen-celtic match with 10 other friends at my mates house. we were subjected to the most laughable 2nd half performance by whistler craig thomson. his display in the second 45mins was symptomatic of the standard of scottish refereeing at this minute in time. it's going downhill.... rapidly. here are some examples from that match. 1) the hesselink penalty - because it was a penalty. it's irrefutable. aberdeen defender bus has wrapped his arms around hesselink and holds hm back as he spins to go after the ball. hesselinks hands aren't on bus making it an easy decision for the official. yet with a clear view of the incident thomson waves play on. 2) the mcgeady booking - no wonder the lad was incensed. he's just back from a suspension and bookings like this are a joke. it couldn't have been for persistent fouling as i don't remember him giving a foul away before that. it was the most innocuous challenge you are ever likely to see. i think thomson stated it was for pulling the player back. he hardly touched him, if at all. if that is the way he wishes to referee matches and is going to remain consistent then you'd be lucky to see a match finish as both teams would be reduced to under 7 men before HT. 3) derek young's 'tackle' on samaras - to compound matters further. a few minutes after the mcgeady booking young is booked for his challenge on samaras. firstly, to me, young has committed a professional foul as the last defender and should be automatically shown the red card. the nearest covering defender was alan mayburry, their LB and he wasn't going to make it in time before samaras was clean through on langfield. secondly, it was almost like a karate challenge on samaras. the tackle alone, regardless of it's position on the pitch could have been deemed as dangerous. minimum it was extremely reckless. 4) late challenge on brown - scott brown plays a ball into the box and then, in full view of thomson who is standing only yards away, is tackled extremely late by darren mackie, i think. brown remains on the ground and this is a player who doesn't stay down easily. a late, reckless challenge and yet thomson waves play on. so good to see the protection offered to players by our referees. now i've heard people come up with reasons for some of the incidents. the best one regarding the pen was that thomson was being charitable!! charitable? referee's aren't supposed to be charitable. they're supposed to referee the match by adhering the laws of the game. i've been told to forget about it as it had no bearing on the match. that doesn't mean a damn thing. thomson's shocking 2nd half performance should not be minimalised because celtic were running away with the game. the scoreline has nothing to do with his performance. it makes no difference whether we were winning 4-0 or 2-0 or 7-0. on another day the ineptitude shown by the referee could have had a major bearing on the match. nor should he be spared punishment because it did not change the result of the match. he shouldn't be let off the hook because we were already far out in front of aberdeen. he should have the book thrown at him. i looked up the SFA's whistleblower to see what the latest comments where on the page. after all, the SFA made a big song and dance about how referee's would explain in their own words about controversial decisions they'd made in big matches. this site was to be updated on a weekly basis. OFFSIDE DECISION Monday, 05 Nov 2007 Pollok v Montrose Scottish Junior Cup Tie the above is their most recent article on the page. says it all really. i'm glad i got through this post without starting on about others such as mccurry. no doubt people will suggest i'm a typical celtic supporter and there is no space for this paranoia. i am not highlighting anything other than the sheer ineptitude of our current crop of referees. in my opinion, it only seems to be getting worse rather than better.
I think St Mirren should be hammered for what they have done! Why did they go public? I don't blame them for making a complaint. But going public was a stupid move.
They didn't go public on anything, what they did was enquire whether or not freeland was allowed to officiate the replay. Why they did this? Well the club are not allowed to say. However, the club do have previous with Alan Freeland. They made an official complaint about the referee to the SFA after he 'allegedly' made comments to Gus McPherson (in front of witnesses from the press) along the lines of I'll help the opposing team no matter who they are against St. Mirren. This is the reason he has not officiated any St. Mirren game since, and the complaint that the club originally made has still to be heard (and probably won't be heard until after Freeland retires). Knowing all this it seems perfectly reasonable for the club to question the appointment of this particular official over Mike McCurry (who was in charge for the first leg of the tie). But as to your comment, they club 'didn't go public' with anything, nor are they allowed too unless they want censured with 'disrepute' charges.
The standard in the SPL is amongst some of the worst in the European Union. When was the last time you took a game in and thought back wondering if you even saw an official!? officials have done their job when you don't notice them. too often the OF gets the benefit of 'charitable' calls or non calls, yet this weekend Rangers were denied the three points when the Beasely goal was chalked off for offsides when Boyd clearly was not in the play...The laughable stuff with the Coach this week with the touchline bam and the ref calling him into his chambers at halftime to let him know he would be reporting him to the SFA for giving his team a HF team talk... The standard is laughable at best.
its a real struggle at the minute but it doesn't help when idiots like Higdon accuse Brines of being a 'Celtic fan'. why is he an idiot? because his take on events on Saturday go against his accusation. he said that he wanted to punch Brines(nice rational behaviour...) for the decisions he was making on Saturday. Brines missed the handball for Celtic's first goal but was that deception on the referees part? i was at the ground and i didn't even know who'd scored it, never mind what with. the ball was fizzed in by Nakamura and players were jostling and queuing up to try and get on the end of it. he then said that Brines was poor because he was getting away with all sorts that he'd normally be booked for including hoofing the ball away after a decision was given against him. surely if Brines was a Celtic supporter then he'd have been itching for any opportunity to book a Falkirk player? to me this just reinforces my opinion that Brines is just a very poor official. nothing more, nothing less.
The standard at Easter Road today was reportedly even lower than the standard of play, and that took some doing. And guess who was out there...
I found it hilarious when the ref twisted his ankle. Can't remember who, i think it was Celtic Dundee Utd but it was so so funny.
If you think the standard is bad in the SPL you should see some of the crap we have to put up with! We had to put up with crap like Cassidy and Hardie for years, spiteful little guys who blew their whistle every 10 seconds (probably just for the attention). Guys like John Underhill get so much abuse in the SPL but I'm delighted when we get a ref like him for our games. Fair enough sometimes he gets decisions wrong, but he actually lets the game flow.
All I can say is stuff being a ref! On another note you get to see a few ref's suffering in this video. http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=YPQ_N4imYVE
The calls that go in the OFs favor are jokes. SPL has the worst refs imaginable. Maybe I'm just biased against refs because I'm a Dundee United, Scotland, Seattle Seahawks, and Seattle Sounders fan? Anyway, SPL should lead the way by using VIDEO REPLAY!!!! It's not a difficult concept. Look how well it has worked in American football and tennis. I think it would increase the SPLs profile to have video replay too. I don't think SPL refs intentially make bad calls. But the fact is that crowd and social influence must make it it so that they unconsiouly make bad calls. It must be a tough job having the pressure of 60,000 angry Scots yelling about a decision and then have to go home to your family and friends and get stick for a call that you made. IMO that pressure is the main reason for the extreem Scottish ref bias towards the OF. SOMETHING has to be done. I think imported refs and video replay would be great for the Scottish game.
I can't believe a Celtic fan started this thread. Its rediculous the amount of points they've won over this season and the title run in last season. So for that reason I'm gonna give this thread a miss.