NOTW & Ex Refs chief blame Celtic

[ian1964 10,761]

FORMER SFA referees chief Donald McVicar says Hugh Dallas' resignation is a massive blow for Scottish football.

 

McVicar, who was in charge of the SFA's refereeing department for ten years before retiring last year, claims Dallas is a victim of a concerted conspiracy against him.

 

Having known Dallas since he started officiating, McVicar has watched this week's events in Scottish refereeing circles with dismay.

 

He said: "As far as Hugh Dallas is concerned, he's been the victim of the mother of all conspiracies.

 

"People were out to get him, they were out to score points and they were out to do him in any way they could.

 

"Anyone who knows Hugh or takes the time to know him will know that there isn't one ounce of bigotry in his body. There are those who have jumped on a satirical email and made capital out of it.

 

"Hugh's also been vilified over the incident involving Dougie McDonald when in fact everything he did was correct.

 

"The suggestion he's been involved in some kind of cover-up is nonsense. Quite the contrary is the case.

 

"Hugh was doing an excellent job at the SFA. He was in for three-and-a-half years with me learning the ropes, and it's sad this has happened to him. I'm absolutely gutted for him and his family.

 

 

Dallas doesn't change anything in a referee's report without the referee or the referee observer giving approval to it

 

"The SFA will struggle to get someone of similar calibre to replace him. When Hugh was a top referee and I was in charge of referee development, I used him for instruction and coaching and he did anything you asked.

 

"He went to public parks to help young guys on a Sunday afternoon when he could've been sitting in his house or been out with his wife after doing a game on a Saturday.

 

"He has great ideas and we used to sit together and bounce things off one another. When the baton was handed to him he had the chance to put these ideas through himself and the benefits are already showing.

 

"Believe me, he will be a massive loss to the SFA. Someone with his experience, both at home and abroad, is a terrific person to have at the top level in Scottish football. The guy's been fourth official at the World Cup Final and a tremendous ambassador for Scotland, for goodness sake.

 

"Unfortunately, it's the old thing of a prophet unsung in his own land.

 

"It's part of the UEFA Referees' Convention to have someone of Hugh's standing in this position.

 

"The association has been using former referees in that role since Ernie Walker started it with George Cumming, who went on to fulfil the same role with FIFA." The whispering campaign around Dallas has claimed that he was responsible for the changing of referee's reports - but McVicar is experienced enough to know exactly what Dallas' responsibilities and duties entail.

 

He said: "Hugh Dallas doesn't change anything in a referee's report without the referee or the referee observer giving approval to it. He doesn't change anything to do with the actual content of reports.

 

"If a referee observer thinks it's a penalty kick, Hugh won't turn round and say, 'I don't think it was a penalty'. His reaction - as mine was when I was in the job - will be that if the referee observer thinks it's a penalty kick, that's good enough.

 

"The idea Hugh is sitting in judgment of referees is wrong. He doesn't even decide which referee gets which game. He'll have an input but that's the responsibility of the Referee Administration Department."

 

Sport of the World also spoke to another senior source in Scottish refereeing circles about the storm which has rocked the worldwide reputation of our game.

 

Our source has been in personal touch with many of Scotland's Category One referees this week over their controversial strike action that has seen European refs handle domestic games this weekend.

 

Our man says the depth of feeling at their meeting last Sunday was such that it soon became inevitable they viewed strike action as their only option. And he lifted the lid on the individual abuse some of our top refs have taken.

 

He said: "Emotions were running sky-high at the referees' meeting. I don't think they've done it the right way - my own opinion is that they should've expressed their concerns, and should've told the SFA through the referees committee that they would withdraw labour.

 

"For instance, I'd have given notice that I would be unavailable over the festive period - just try and get replacement refs between say December 20 and January 8.

 

 

"But while I've been trying to understand, guide and advise, this strength of feeling is what comes through. Of the Category One referees, of whom there are just over 30, I've spoken to nine or ten personally. They don't want to do what they're doing but they don't see any other means of getting their point across. We've all made mistakes while refereeing. But when people are using expressions like 'lies, conspiracies and cover-ups', strong action is required. I think people were taken aback by the strength of feeling from the guys.

 

"The abuse they've had has been appalling. We've got referees whose wives have picked up their house phones to have someone saying 'That orange b*****d husband of yours is going to get it'. The same family were then abused in a supermarket.

 

"We'd three referees who were called in by their bosses at work and told, 'If your integrity is called into question over this, you either give up refereeing or give up your job'.

 

"These are guys whose jobs are such that trust is a key element of their work. Another referee's firm is being bombarded by emails demanding to know why they employ him.

 

"You can see how people are upset about it all by this constant vilification from a particular club. It wears them down, it's intimidation, it's bullying, it's harassment. And that's why they've done this.

 

"People say referees are high profile but they don't want to be high-profile.

 

"They want to do their game, go home and go out for a meal on Saturday night. It's so sad they're not able to do that, and it's all coming from one source.

 

An apology from Celtic to the referees for calling their integrity into question would get us over this first hurdle

 

"The suggestion from MP Peter Wishart that referees should declare their allegiance is totally impossible.

 

"There are checks in place at the SFA. If a referee worked for B&Q and B&Q sponsored Airdrie, he would go to the SFA and ask if that was a conflict of interest.

 

"There was one case where the referee's boss at work was the chairman of a football club. But what do you do?

 

"That ref doesn't handle his boss' club's games - but does he handle games involving clubs who are round about that club in the league? Where does it all end? The permutations are immense.

 

"There isn't one man who takes up refereeing who hasn't grown up supporting a club. But once you start making your way in refereeing, you stop going to see your local team because you're always refereeing and the last thing you think about is giving favours to this team or that one. You're too busy concentrating on your career.

 

"If you asked all the Category One refs who they supported and they all said Celtic, does that mean Celtic can't play any games because every referee supports them?

 

"An apology from Celtic to the referees for calling their integrity into question would get us over this first hurdle.

 

"Then we'd need to get all groups around the table and get some sort of agreement in place - no talking about refs before matches, be careful what they say at the end of matches.

 

"There's an acceptance that referees make mistakes but to say there's bias is rubbish.

 

"Somebody can call me the worst referee there is, but to call a ref a cheat is the biggest insult you can give him.

 

"There's an academy of refs in their late teens just now and the SFA will try to fast-track them.

 

"When they pass their examination they will be told their skin has to take on the thickness of an elephant's hide.

 

"The people who are calling the integrity of our referees into question would do well to think about what their thoughtless remarks are doing to all referees and the image of the game in Scotland."

[ian1964 10,761]

FURIOUS Hugh Dallas is planning to sue the SFA for sacking him over an offensive email.

 

We can reveal the referees supremo has spoken to lawyers after he was axed on Friday.

 

The dismissal of Dallas, 53, followed an internal investigation into a tasteless email about the Pope. Four other SFA staff plan to fight their sackings.

 

Last night an SFA insider said: "The SFA has all- out war on its hands. Dallas is absolutely furious."

 

RAGING Hampden insiders last night hit out over the sacking of refs supremo Hugh Dallas and four other SFA employees - and claimed all five were scapegoats.

 

Sources revealed that the offensive email about the Pope that led to their dismissals had been passed on by several other workers and officials at the Scottish football HQ.

 

One told us: "If they were sacked, others should have gone, too. They're just scapegoats so the bosses can say, 'Look, we've axed the culprits, now let's move on'.

 

"But that isn't going to happen. The SFA has all-out war on its hands."

 

Dallas and his colleagues were sacked on Friday by SFA chief executive Stewart Regan after an internal SFA investigation into a tasteless email sent on the day of Pope Benedict's visit to Scotland in September.

 

Our insider explained: "Nine staff were interviewed at a disciplinary hearing on Thursday with Regan and Viv Coady, the head of Human Resources. Then five were sacked the following day.

 

Even some very senior people are being kept out of the loop on this one

 

"Since then they have all taken legal advice and intend to lodge appeals.The thing is that the email about the Pope was sent internally within the SFA.

 

"Some people who sent it were sacked but others who sent it internally have kept their jobs.

 

"The punishment seems very harsh and there's a feeling it hasn't been dealt with even-handedly. There's a definite feeling Regan has over-reacted."

 

The source revealed that Dallas is "apoplectic" about his dismissal.

 

We can reveal one of the sacked workers is Tim Berridge, an audio visual technician who recorded games for Scotland boss Craig Levein.

 

Also dismissed was Amanda MacDonald, an administrative assistant who acted as Levein's secretary. The other two axed were coaching official Marco McIntyre and mailroom manager Bob Bryan. All four worked in the SFA's Football Development department.

 

Last night a highly-placed insider at the organisation told us: "Amanda told friends on Thursday that she had been told to report for a disciplinary meeting.

 

"She said it was about the Dallas email. We have heard nothing about what happened to her at the meeting. Her mobile is switched off.

 

"Even some very senior people are being kept out of the loop on this one."

 

Mr McIntyre was unavailable for comment at his home in Crookston, Glasgow.

 

When we asked a woman who answered his door about his sacking, she said: "How do you know about that?"

 

Mr Bryan, speaking from his East Kilbride home, said: "I can't comment." Mr Berridge and Mr Dallas were unavailable for comment.

 

Fixing the morale of the top-flight referees is an entirely different battle

 

Yesterday SFA president George Peat moved to distance himself from the sackings - and indicated he'd not even been told about them.

 

He said: "I read reports in the papers this morning that some people have resigned but I don't know and I can't get involved in it.

 

"All I know is Stewart Regan was meeting with several members of staff.

 

"But if there were to be appeals they would have to come to me, so I can't get involved."

 

News of the impending legal battle comes as Hampden bosses are rocked by allegations that other offensive emails are set to emerge.

 

One has been shown to the News of the World, but we are not disclosing its content for legal reasons. It pokes fun at a high-profile member of the Scottish football world.

 

The email is believed to have been sent to the SFA offices at Hampden Park in Glasgow but it's not known if it was then circulated.

 

The first details about the email scandal were revealed by the Scottish News of the World on November 7. The offensive message showed a road sign indicating a danger to kids and the words "The Pope is coming".

 

This week a Catholic Church spokesman called for Dallas to be sacked if it was proved he had forwarded the email on the day of the Pope's visit to Scotland in September.

 

Yesterday his former refereeing colleagues staged a one-day strike in protest at attacks on their integrity - with their places taken by officials from Luxembourg, Malta and Israel.

 

They took charge of four SPL matches, with the rest of the football card wiped out by the weather. The foreign refs will also take charge of another two SPL games today.

 

Our source added: "The SFA's treatment of Dallas and the other workers is one battle.

 

"Fixing the morale of the top-flight referees is an entirely different battle."

 

Yesterday we visited striking match officials Willie Collum and Dougie McDonald. Collum, 31, allegedly received death threats after the Celtic v Rangers match on October 24.

 

He was criticised by Hoops boss Neil Lennon for awarding Gers a controversial penalty.

 

At his home in Lanarkshire yesterday the whistler declined to comment on the strike after a trip out with his young daughter.

 

A disgruntled-looking McDonald, 45, also refused to discuss the issue when we approached him at his home in Edinburgh.

 

But last night FIFA-listed official Craig Thomson warned refereeing standards have been put at risk by the decision to chop Dallas.

 

The ref, who took charge of the Ajax v Real Madrid Champions League tie in midweek, also warned that Scotland had lost one of the top authorities in the game.

 

Thomson said: "I see Hugh as a world-class individual within Scottish football. There are not many within our game who have been at the World Cup Finals.

 

"The coaching experience he can pass on to referees is immeasurable, particularly to guys involved in European games.

 

"There is a lot of work behind the scenes that I'm hoping won't be lost. On a day-to-day basis it will be difficult to continue.

 

"It's a low day for us. Whether we agree with the punishment or not is another issue."

 

But Thomson then added: "We think it is way over the top.

 

"To have a World Cup finalist in our midst and for some reason to get rid of him is detrimental to referees."

[Gazza_8 233]

Hugh Dallas can only blame himself for his resignation.

 

Someone must've sent the same email to his works address and they're keeping very quiet.

[ian1964 10,761]

Article by rod liddle in sun Times

Mr Liddle hits the spot -

 

Strikes are not terribly popular with the general public unless they are undertaken by workers with whom, rightly or wrongly, we have a certain admiration or sympathy — firemen, for example, or miners. I think it’s fair to say that football referees do not fall into that category. Almost every week I have a yearning to brick up a referee in my basement and keep him there for 18 years, in the manner of an Austrian child. I accept this is psychopathic.

But the Scottish referees have a very good point, I think, and we should all be on the picket line with them this weekend.

It is a dispute which could very easily migrate south of the border — and it is a wonder that it has not done so already. For sure, the Scottish business is muddied by the usual intimations of arcane secularism and seems to focus on Celtic’s habitual wallowing in victimhood.

But the central issue — that referees, who are not paid very much, are routinely abused, maligned and have their integrity and competence called into question by gobby, arrogant, childish, overpaid players and managers and are given inadequate redress from the authorities — applies just as well down here.

The latest development is that Hugh Dallas, head of the Referee Development Department at the Scottish FA, has resigned as a consequence of being involved somehow in the sending of an email which poked fun at the Pope. Most normal people would either laugh or not laugh and move on, but in certain parts of Scotland it’s akin to the public burning of the Koran and indicative of a profound anti-Catholic bias.

Meanwhile, the SFA have staffed the weekend’s games with a bunch of imported foreign referees and a woman called Morag they found in Aberdeen. Some of the foreign strike-breakers pulled out. The Israelis were beset by moral qualms (a national first, this) but the Maltese and Luxembourg contingents are still up for a bit of blacklegging, it is believed.

The current dispute is supposedly occasioned by the referee Dougie McDonald, who changed his mind about awarding a penalty to Celtic in a recent match at Dundee United. It was supposedly exacerbated by McDonald lying to the Celtic manager Neil Lennon after the game about why he had changed his mind. McDonald should not have engaged with Lennon at all but simply said: “Mind your own business, you overwrought ginger munchkin”. Sadly he did not.

Lennon has called for McDonald — who has been a top-flight referee for 13 years — to be struck off the list. This is precisely the sort of pique and arrogance we witness from Premier League managers pretty much each week. More astonishingly, though, Lennon has been supported by the chairman of Celtic, the former Blairite cabinet minister and, before that, Stalinist Commie, “Dr” John Reid. Reid has called McDonald’s position untenable and gone further, demanding a “radical” shake-up of the Scottish game, alleging long-term “lies and conspiracies”, all of which have been committed in order to down his team.

I think Reid spent too long pinioned between Mandelson and Brown in those dying days of the Blair government and is now capable of seeing a conspiracy in a handful of dust. This is how Celtic react to not winning the league, I suppose, although Reid says it’s nothing to do with sour grapes and that last season they weren’t good enough, a consequence — he admitted — of his having appointed Tony Mowbray to run the team. So, a swipe at the refs, the football establishment and poor Mowbray. The obvious solution is to have Lennon — a serial offender in abusing referees — banished to the stands for the rest of the season, preferably with McDonald reffing all his games and Reid told to shut up by the SFA or resign. But Celtic are too big a club for that and the SFA too timorous. The abuse of referees has been continual, north of the border, for several years; two years ago both Walter Smith, the Rangers manager, and Gordon Strachan, then Celtic manager, accepted it had gone too far and it was time to cut refs a bit of slack. The reverse has happened.

It would not take a huge leap over Hadrian’s Wall for something similar to happen in England. Lennon was no more spiteful and damaging in his attacks upon McDonald than Sir Alex Ferguson was in his vituperation towards Alan Wiley when Manchester United (luckily) grabbed a point from Sunderland last season. The fitness levels, general competence and — yes — integrity of referees are all issues upon which the managers feel at liberty to wax lyrical in post-match interviews, when they’ve been stuffed or dropped a point, and the referees have no redress and little protection from the FA. Maybe one weekend quite soon Morag and Maltesers will be turning out at Stamford Bridge and Old Trafford

[ian1964 10,761]

Walter Smith lays down gauntlet to 'slow' SFA as he backs refs

Premium Article !

 

 

Published Date: 28 November 2010

By Tom English

There are days for diplomacy and there are days for letting rip. On Friday, Walter Smith let rip. "You've got to, haven't you?" he said. "You can't not say anything when the referees are going on strike."

The Rangers manager has huge sympathy for the plight of the beleaguered Scottish referees, saying that he supports them in their protest and that he can't fully understand why foreign officials would want to take their place in the SPL yesterday and

today. "If I was a referee in another country, I couldn't referee a game in Scotland this weekend," he said.

 

Smith's remarks will shake the ground under the feet of everybody at the Scottish Football Association, a body which he deems terribly weak in their handling of the club whose name they dare not speak: Celtic. The Rangers manager never mentioned his Glasgow rivals by name but he didn't have to. It was obvious who he was talking about.

 

"The SFA have been slow to act and they've allowed this to drag on," Smith said of the Dougie McDonald saga and the myriad controversies that followed that wearying business at Tannadice.

 

"What are we talking about now? Six or eight weeks where it's just been a constant barrage of referees. Everybody is fed up with it. The SFA have got to clarify what the situation is. They're saying they have a problem with all clubs but the SFA have never written to say they've a problem with Rangers. I can only speak for Rangers, but the majority of other clubs would be the same as us. We've never received anything from the SFA saying they're unhappy with the way we've been handling referees, before or after a game, so it's not right that everybody is thrown into this. It's the same thing that happens - we talk about it, talk about it, talk about it and then when it comes to the action, all of a sudden it starts to get blurred and everybody starts to blame everybody else.

 

"If the SFA have a problem, they need to name their problem. Because this is an important issue and they've got to name that problem. They've to take that responsibility. It's their lack of responsibility that has caused this problem as much as anything."

 

Smith isn't just talking about the new chief executive, Stewart Regan, whom he has a degree of sympathy for given the fact that he's barely in the door at Hampden. He's talking also about a previous regime, a build-up of months where the authorities have allowed Celtic to question the integrity of referees to the point of calling them crooked.

 

It's been a torturous week for the game in Scotland. Humiliating on many levels. The story of the Portuguese officials stepping off the plane in Glasgow on Friday evening and then heading straight back home again encapsulates the farcical element of what has been going on.

 

"The SFA are the body who manage referees. They handle the refereeing situation. They're in charge.

 

The SPL are brilliant at pushing it to the SFA and the SFA are, therefore, in charge of that. So if they'd taken that action quicker then I don't think it would have come to this. I agree with the referees' action. They've had to take this action so

that everything comes to a head.

 

"But I think enough is enough for the likes of myself. There's no reason why I shouldn't say it. It's overtaken our football. Nobody's talking about what we're all here for. People should be coming to watch football players and football matches and talking about what happens within a game. They shouldn't be exaggerating one aspect of what happens within a match."

 

Smith said that the treatment of officials has never been worse in his time in the game. "I've seen Sir Alex and Jim McLean and Billy McNeill go in and argue with a referee. I've seen myself do it. But I don't think there was ever this undercurrent that the referees were making decisions for other reasons. That's been bubbling under the surface for a couple of seasons and it's not been confronted and that's a problem. But that's the problem with a lot of things in Scottish football, things not being confronted and no clear cut decisions being made as to what the answer is. If this is going to be a catalyst for a change that will help the game then I think it will be a good thing. There isn't any doubt that (in] the last five to ten years there's been an awful lot of talking and absolutely no action, on all fronts. It's unfair on Stewart Regan. What I'm saying when I talk about the leadership of the SFA, it's not just current, it's previous."

 

Smith added: "First and foremost, we have to end this current climate of criticism for referees and we have to get back to accepting a referee's decision for what it is - purely a decision. In a majority of football countries there's maybe a dissatisfaction with a decision, but there is not this element of there being another reason why the referee gave a decision, all this bias towards one team or another. The quicker we put an end to that, the better. We can't continue the way we are at the moment. It's just impossible."

 

Nobody in the managerial fraternity has come out as forcefully as this since this drama erupted on Sunday night. Indeed, Craig Brown, at Motherwell, has been extremely critical of the referees' stance, saying that they embarrassed Scottish football when they withdrew their labour without first negotiating with representatives from the SFA, the SPL, the SFL, the Scottish PFA and the League Managers' Union.

 

Smith is of an entirely different view. "We have to trust that in the background there has been part-negotiation before (the referees] reached a situation like this one. They've never done this before, so obviously they've been unhappy when the subject has been broached with the SFA, unhappy with the answers they've been getting, and have been forced to take this action.

 

"The other part is that this is the second year in a row we've had this situation where they've been constantly questioned. You reserve the right as a manager to disagree with decisions that a referee makes. You would always hope that after you get your answer you take it in the right way and not the way it's being taken at present, where their integrity is being questioned."

 

From the Ibrox manager, the message is clear. The SFA won't like it and neither will Celtic. But there many others - not just Rangers people - who will say that he has hit the nail squarely on the head.