Rough Justice for Men in Black As Blame Culture Grows; Referees; Officials Are Being Used As Scapegoats and If the Abuse Increases, the Game Will Suffer at Grassroots Level, Writes Michael Grant

Summary

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IF Scottish referees were ever to put together an SPL table it would look very different to the one printed in this morning's newspapers. Dundee and Dunfermline would be joint leaders, with Hibs and Aberdeen their closest challengers. Rangers would be above Celtic, in fact the Parkhead club would be vying for bottom spot with Hearts, Kilmarnock and Dundee United. The criteria for the referees' table? Those at the top would be the ones with managers who have a sensible, mature attitude to dealing with officials during games.

No two referees have the same relationship with any one manager, but a consensus view would be that Jim Duffy and David Hay are gentlemen and Jimmy Calderwood and Tony Mowbray cause no difficulties. Alex McLeish and his assistant, Andy Watson, will talk in grown-up fashion with a referee and his assistants (though Ibrox coach Jan Wouters can be a handful), but Martin O'Neill and Celtic coaches John Robertson and Steve Walford are cold and distant, seeming to regard officials as no better than a necessary evil. Jim Jefferies (and his assistant, Billy Brown), Hearts' John Robertson and Ian McCall are the most temperamental and difficult.

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Rough Justice for Men in Black As Blame Culture Grows; Referees; Officials Are Being Used As Scapegoats and If the Abuse Increases, the Game Will Suffer at Grassroots Level, Writes Michael Grant

Often the relationship between managers and referees is barely above mere tolerance. What irritates referees is the increasing prevalence of managers rushing to criticise them in the ...

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