Over a week has passed since the Gers were beaten 2-1 by Celtic in a contentious Old Firm clash at Celtic Park, a match that saw them fuming when a penalty was not awarded against Alistair Johnston.
Collum was on VAR duty and decided there was no case to answer but the situation became muddier still when stills were shown of Abdallah Sima offside in the build-up, which would have overturned any penalty decision anyway.
Rangers have met with refs chief Crawford Allan and have asked for the VAR audio to be released. Miller, though, thinks the SFA fuelled theories of “conspiracy” and “bias” by putting up the images of the offside.
“I don’t like seeing referees being put under pressure. Are Rangers correct to ask for an explanation of what actually happened? Absolutely. But they can’t dictate to the SFA who’s going to referee their games,” he told the Daily Record (6 January).
“We’re really passionate about our clubs and our game in Scotland. It’s OK to be disgruntled at decisions made against your club. But if a mistake has been made, you have to believe it’s an honest one. If we don’t, we have far bigger problems. But by putting out the offside lines after the event, all it did was open a can of worms and instigate theories of bias or conspiracy.
“That didn’t sit right with me. It didn’t need to happen. The SFA have caused their own issue there. It was completely unnecessary because Willie didn’t believe it was a handball.”
Spot on
There are a lot of moving parts to consider here, so let’s dissect what we can.
First of all, should a handball have been awarded? Overwhelmingly the answer is yes. Would it have been overturned anyway? Again, yes.
But the process involved was an absolute shambles there is no hiding from that fact and Rangers absolutely do deserve answers from the SFA over the process involved.
Having said that no club can start requesting which officials do not oversee their games, to be honest it made the club’s hierarchy look a little bit silly at a time when they held the moral high ground.
However, the SFA did themselves no favours by showing the offside stills. Collum felt, rightly or wrongly, it wasn’t a penalty and that should have been the end of it. The waters were completely muddied by doing what they did.
From all involved it has been handled so badly, it’s a real shame that a week on we’re still talking about this. Everyone has to do better, it’s as simple as that.
