After being called out by the Ibrox messengers in the wake of their defeat in the League Cup Final, Ian Maxwell suddenly appeared in midweek at yet another initiative announcing massive investment for youth development in Scottish football.
With Scott Gemmill in charge of the u-21 side and Mark Wotte’s 2020 vision gathering dust alongside other Think Tank declarations the SFA CEO knows all about failure management.
Before taking over from Stewart Regan at Hampden, Maxi led Partick Thistle to relegation from the SPFL Premiership in 2018, they’ve not missed him around Firhill.
Maxwell prepared the excuses on Wednesday with Willie Collum throwing his former refereeing colleagues under the bus the next day in a pathetic attempt to earn media credibility. This from the man that was twice kept away from Tribute Act fixtures for months at a time after their Chairman reacted to the demands of fan media partners.
When you are pandering to Kris Boyd and Keith Jackson it is time for some self reflection, asking what is the point of being so compromised.
The actions of Maxwell and Collum over the last week perfectly summarise the conflicted role of governance in Scottish football. When the call goes out from Ibrox the reply from the SFA is forever ‘how high’.
With Collum’s number in his contact book, through their mutual mate Gordon Duncan, Boyd turned his anger on the CEO of the SFA as he continued his paranoid ranting in Saturday’s edition of The Sun.
Right on queue Maxi turned up on Sportsound on Saturday afternoon as host Kenny Macintyre’s blood pressure soared on the back of having to paint over the World’s Most Successful Club logos dotted around his luxury home, funded entirely by the BBC Licence fee.
It is a familiar ritual for SFA employees to go through. In December 2021 when Boyd had a petted lip over a goal scored against Hearts by Kyogo Furuhashi, former Head of Refereeing Crawford Allan broke off from his holiday to apologise on Radio Scotland. Robbie Neilson never even got his phone calls returned.
Judging by his dishevelled appearance it looks like Maxwell has just returned from a holiday or overstayed his welcome on Kenny Miller’s favourite sunbed.
“What we need to eradicate is the real toe curlers. The ones 99% of football fans look at and go ‘how can that be?'”
SFA CEO Ian Maxwell on what more needs to be done to improve VAR 📺⤵️#BBCFootball pic.twitter.com/UCiLe11z8c
— BBC Sport Scotland (@BBCSportScot) December 21, 2024
Earlier in the week Maxwell had claimed that all was hunky dory with refereeing since this had been the first time that he had been asked about VAR issues.
Maybe that is because the CEO of the SFA has been in hiding, even avoiding the traditional cosy interviews with legacy media outlets that his predecessors would undertake during international breaks.
It seems that everyone inside Scottish football thinks that transparency and accountability has been applied by a 25 minute show on You Tube once a month where Collum and Duncan select a few incidents and admit that the honest mistakes have been made by officials.
Celtic fans are still waiting for something beyond squiggly lines to justify a ‘goal’ from Kyogo Furuhashi being disallowed in the September Glasgow Derby.
Regardless of that Michael Nicholson thinks that it is a great watch with no comment from the club on why Greg Aitken never awarded Celtic a penalty in the SPFL opener at home to Kilmarnock or why Muir did likewise in October when Daizen Maeda was chopped by Stephen O’Donnell of Motherwell.
Muir did spot that Maeda put the ball in the net with his hand, that sort of selective decision making helped get him last week’s job at Hampden- yet another example of the flawed logic of Collum. Or compromised as many might put it.
Maxwell will be hoping to crawl back to his holiday/sunbed but the next 10 days are fraught with danger for the SFA with incredible scrutiny being placed on who is involved in the January 2 Derby match at Ibrox and how they perform. Muir and Frank Connor are on extended leave on instructions from Ibrox.
With all of the candidates for the Derby fixture coming from Glasgow and Lanarkshire Collum has to try and keep them out of the spotlight in the December 26 and 29 rounds of fixtures.
Owing to the severely restricted options it wouldn’t be a shock if Beaton was put in charge for a third successive Derby match, after that Nick Walsh looks the favourite with the prospects of getting away with David Dickinson fading, much to the dismay of his family members who’ll need to look elsewhere for tickets or watch on the telly.
Maxwell oversaw the appointment of the worst referee in generations as Head of Refereeing at the SFA, now he has to front up to the consequences of Collum clones causing chaos across Scottish football.
Compromised individual, don’t take anything he says seriously
— Fraser (@FraserCyberBTC) December 21, 2024
This happened last season. 100x worse than anything last week, but I don’t recall the media spending a second on it. What utter bollox. https://t.co/MG90EZAi59
— Raffles (@NoleBhoy) December 22, 2024
And a slight tug on a jersey certainly isn’t one of those.
Only a talking point because EBT recieving cheerleaders made it one— BigFrank (@chuckrabaw) December 21, 2024
The guy is absolutely clueless seriously surprised he’s got to the age he is, an intellectual pygmy, how he’s not accidentally offed himself with his own cutlery is one of life’s real mysteries! #FucktheSFA
— Thank you very much 😘 (@Ozwon) December 21, 2024
Typical Media bias, no mention of Jefte and Balogun escaping Red Cards by a biased Ref.
— FreddyFerret (@freddy_fer13) December 21, 2024
Has he fell asleep in an oven.
— FreddyFerret (@freddy_fer13) December 21, 2024
The fouls where no one can even see a foul are okay though, or at least the smirking linesman thinks so when he’s relieving the pressure against one team time and time again.
— Cecil Teapot Jnr (@TeapotJnr) December 22, 2024
Has he been dooking for pizza?
— jamie1978 (@j197888) December 21, 2024
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