Disaster at SFA as Rangers saga descends into farce
The Willie Collum and Daniel Candeias saga is something we have covered on Ibrox Noise but not to a huge extent – and following Rangers’ appeal midweek (something we were led to believe was not possible) over his second booking, the SFA’s decision to reject the appeal is only the latest sign of the absolute disgrace that is Scottish football and how it is ‘run’.
As Rangers’ official statement, this decision denies an innocent man the right to go to his work, and if ever there was a miscarriage of justice, however trivial that seems, this would be it.
From what we understand, Collum actually had the opportunity to review the incident in his office after the match – a chance to watch it again and check he got the call right.
It is our belief he not only did not endeavour to change his mind, but outright rejected the chance to take a second look.
To label this as ‘officiating’ is unjust at best, and as Rangers said, it ‘defies belief’ how this incident has played out.
Let’s look at the timeline:
- Candeias gets a yellow card for an overindulgent celebration of the opening goal. Fair enough – it’s square, but that’s the law.
- He then gets accosted by Craig Samson in St Mirren’s goal for allegedly showing no respect after Morelos’ winner.
- He then gets headlocked by Anton Ferdinand and receives a bit of a crack to the jaw.
- Willie Collum books him a second time and he gets a slightly early bath.
- The booking, patently false, is then ignored by Collum with an opportunity to review.
- Rangers appeal, and the SFA announce the appeal has been rejected.
- Rangers make a statement decrying this astonishing turn of events.
- Collum pulls out of Aberdeen Hibs
Words sometimes fail us at Ibrox Noise at how much further our authorities can continue to sink in the act of incompetence and failure to administrate our game accurately or fairly.
Our best theory is that by upholding Rangers’ appeal, it would have undermined Collum’s decision – but if the referee made a human error with the booking, that is forgivable.
What is not forgivable is sticking stubbornly to your guns, defying sense and borderline changing reality to suit your agenda.
We are not saying Collum is a bad man, or a bad referee – truth is there are worse refs in our game than this guy. But he’s made a big, big error and he’s been extremely unwise to stand by it, and the SFA even worse for backing him on it.
It just undermines refereeing in this country which is already in a pitiful state as it is, and destroys any fragment of lingering trust we still have in both our referees to get it right, and our authorities to govern fairly and rectify mistakes when errors occur.
Very, very poor.