What do we do aout our referees?

The whole Tannadice penalty incident is still rumbling on today, but what do we need to do with our referees in Scotland?

I won’t bore anyone reading this about the whole thing involving Dougie McDonald, Steven Craven and Hugh Dallas but I’d rather look at the bigger picture.

The standards have been getting worse for years, and I now hanker for the days of John Rowbotham and Willie Young, guys we didn’t appreciate at the time!

Sometimes I do believe the job has become too difficult for people across the globe, with stupid directives from FIFA/UEFA. For example how difficult is the offside rule to interpret these days!

The other thing we have to take into consideration in recent weeks is the behaviour of the players themselves. Look at the tackles and the diving in the Old Firm game, and Willie Collum would have needed four pairs of eyes to pick up everything.

Going forward I would like to see the referees answering questions on their controversial decisions after a game. For example, at Fir Park on Saturday fans left wondering why Martin Canning wasn’t sent off for barging Nick Blackman of the ball as he was about to tap the ball into the net. A more obvious goal scoring opportunity you will ever see, but not according to Craig Thomson.

Secondly I would like a rule to be passed that prevents the Managers/Players criticising refs after the game, this would also mean the press not asking questions about the ref. Other sports fine coaches and managers who criticise match officials and I would support that if the SFA decided to do this.