The SFA have given further endorsement to the relationship between Kris Boyd and Willie Collum.
During a recent episode of The Warm Up the small talk between Gordon Duncan and Boyd revealed that phone calls had taken place with the Head of Refereeing over the decision not to give Nicolas Kuhn a second yellow card after he had scored a late winner for Celtic away to Ross County.
On screen Boyd couldn’t discuss any other issue from the match, asking when the rule had been changed over celebrating with supporters.
As any competent pundit would know a yellow card is only issued in exceptional circumstances such as when Paulo Bernardo opened the scoring in the December 2023 Glasgow Derby and ran towards the Green Brigade.
Boyd was on duty at Ibrox in April when Cyriel Dessers grabbed a corner flag and ran into the Sandy Jardine Stand to celebrate a goal that was eventually disallowed. To the surprise of no-one the Nigerian striker wasn’t booked, allowing him to continue fouling without the prospect of a second yellow card.
With Collum now Head of Refereeing at the SFA, Duncan has been nominated as his media minder to portray him as a regular, ordinary guy as he glosses over obvious errors from match referees while carefully bodyswerving the most outrageous of ‘honest mistakes’.
Showing his human face on The Warm Up Boyd and Collum were sharing matey banter about David Beckham with the former Portland Timbers striker revealing that he got a signed LA Galaxy top signed by Becks ‘To Chris’.
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Collum’s appearances on The VAR Review promise to become more and more contrived as he indulges in verbal gymnastics to justify the decisions being taken by his former refereeing colleagues.
At Ibrox last month Hibs were awarded a penalty but there was surprise that John Souttar wasn’t red carded for raising his arm to deny a clear goalscoring opportunity from inside the six yard box.
Nick Walsh and Kevin Clancy came to the decision that a penalty was sufficient punishment with Collum going the extra mile to justify the failure to send off Souttar.
Here there is every opportunity that the goalkeeper can save this shot. The fact that no card was shown could be debated, if the referee here had deemed the actions of John Souttar to have been deliberate he probably would have received a yellow card, blocking a shot deliberately at close range from the goal.
But because the referee and the VAR team don’t deem this as a deliberate handball, there’s no need for a yellow card because that was removed from the laws of the game for a mandatory yellow card for a shot at goal. We would not support a red card. This is not an obvious goalscoring opportunity because the goalkeeper has the opportunity to save this shot.
On Sunday Boyd will be on Sky Sports duty for the match at Rugby Park where Steven McLean will be in charge of a match involving the team that his Dad played for against the team that all of the McLean family support.
As Collum explained on Super Scoreboard alongside Duncan the SFA ensure that there are no conflicts of interest for their officials such as working for a club sponsor or having a son in the youth team at an SPFL club.
Walsh will referee the match between Celtic and Aberdeen before returning to Boclair Acaemy in Bearsden to work on the fitness of the Murray Park starlets.
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