Scottish Referees must be made to declare their allegiances

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The Celtic Star

·25 February 2026

Scottish Referees must be made to declare their allegiances

Should referees be made to declare their allegiance? Of course they should. It happens elsewhere but not in Scotland and we all know why…

Referee John Beaton during the Premier Sports Cup Final between Celtic and theRangers at Hampden on Sunday 15 December 2024. Photo Vagelis Georgariou (The Celtic Star)

Scottish referees are again under the microscope after a few high profile incidents at the weekend, and not just the ones involving the clubs who dominate the top half of the table.

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Incidents in high profile game will naturally get more attention, but the standard of refereeing in our country is abysmal, it really is at an all time low, with every single club being affected at some point by the ‘incompetence’ of our match officials.

It’s a subject that’s been highlighted in the SMSM of course, but something they won’t dare to mention is the situation that exists between match officials, particularly referees and VARs in regard to which team they have or had allegiances to in their youth.

Referee Steven McLean (Photo by Stu Forster/Getty Images)

Most officials are known to lean favourably towards the clubs that calls Ibrox home, that’s a well known fact. It’s been that way since the existence of football in this country, with the forefathers of the current crop of officials having a strong affection with the now defunct Rangers FC.

I’m not naive enough to believe that none of them have an affiliation with our own club, and it would be daft to think otherwise, as we live in a small country, but on the whole the refereeing fraternity is that of a blue persuasion.

One way would be to force officials to declare what side they support, just like their counterparts down south, but the downside being that we would have very likely have no one available to take charge of any fixtures.

Or we would have an influx of St Mirren, Partick Thistle, and Clyde etc being listed as favoured sides, much like we see in the media from the likes of Chick Young and others. Another favoured option is to bring in foreign officials, but the governing body will never go for that.

Where are the match officials from Aberdeen, Inverness, Dundee and other places. The reason that the Aberdeen v Celtic game took so long to postpone recently was because the SFA could find a local referee to do the pitch inspection.

This Sunday for the Glasgow Derby both match officials are supporters of theRangers. That’s a simple fact. John Beaton and Steven McLean are Rangers supporters. Can imagine two Everton fans taking charge of the Liverpool Derby, or two Arsenal fans handling a match against Tottenham? Of a similar situation in the Manchester Derby? Not a chance.

Some thought VAR would clean up our game from the era of honest mistakes. How naive were they!

Photo by Stuart Wallace/Shutterstock referee David Dickinson

One things for sure, there needs to be a discussion over the impartiality of our match officials. It’s glaring obvious that there’s a problem, and it can’t continue to be ignored. Park this until Monday then we’ll do an update then the same a week later after another Rangers fan, David ‘Digger’ Dickenson gets his shot of the whistle, watch it happening…

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Celtic in the Thirties by Matt Corr. Click on image to order