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Willie Collum on ‘insulting’ Celtic and Rangers question and details ref declarations

The newly-appointed SFA head of referees has been answering fan questions

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Willie Collum spoke on an ‘insulting’ Celtic and Rangers question

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Willie Collum insists it is “insulting” to suggest certain referees are biased towards either Celtic or Rangers.

In this country, conspiracies are always rife or whether an official is is or grew up a supporter of either of the big two and would therefore look to favour them or help them to a result aided by their decission., particularly as a lot of them are from the west of Scotland.

As one of the high-profile whistlers, Collum has often been one who had his integrity called into question. But he insists that should never happen as the biggest priority for refs is professional pride, while for refereeing chiefs it is hiring and developing the best officials.

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Speaking on Clyde Superscoreboard, he said: “I think it is insulting because it is questioning people’s integrity. Referees integrity is alway at the utmost. What I would say as well is people say geographically a referee comes from here, or comes from there and has a background as I mentioned earlier – I don’t care about any of these things. I want quality, and that is what we (the SFA) judge referees on. “

Collum says aspiring refs need to declare an interest – for example if they have relatives involved with a club or have a connection with a club’s sponsor. But he says they “must draw the line somewhere”, with fans sometimes picking up on tenuous links.

He added: “First off all, referees need to declare an interest. We had a top assistant a couple of years ago and his son was playing for a senior club, even though he was playing for an under-19 club he declared that as an interest. Also, if somebody is working for a company that sponsors a particular club, these are the things we would expect the referee to declare an interest in.

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“In terms of a team that somebody might support or a connection with a family member, where do we draw the line? We want to encourage people into refereeing and say you can referee the top games – you can referee the top games. We would put a blocker on that, and I keep saying where do you draw the line?

“If somebody’s third relative had a connection somewhere, or had a season ticket to support somebody – what I would say is, and I want to be really honest with people, when you are refereeing at the top level of the game you have a passion for it, you want to achieve well. Refereeing took me places as a young kid that I never dreamed I would go to. Why would I jeopardise or risk that to say ‘I want this team to win or affect this’ – I want people to trust me that it’s not the case.

“We are barraged by comments in the west of Scotland towards one club or the other – that is not the case. People make genuine decisions, genuine errors and we are honest.

“If referees weren’t honest we would have a problem. It’s 2024, I think we need to move away from that. I would ask people to shift that narrative, let’s get behind referees rather than try to pick a fault because a person is associated with that or that. They are top referees for a reason and it’s been a long journey to get there. And when they get there they want to stay there.”

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