Will Celtic even bother to attend the the refereeing summit at Ibrox later this month?

We spend a lot of time talking about referees in Scotland.

There doesn’t seem to be a weekend that goes by without one controversy or another involving referees.

Celtic fell victim to a ridiculous call from Duncan Nicholson on Saturday, when he wouldn’t allow an advantage to Arne Engels.

Motherwell lost at Hearts as a result of a shocking penalty call from Matthew McDermid and Steven McLean in the VAR room.

Falkirk should have had a man advantage after Jayden Meghoma hacked Calvin Miller down when he broke clear with nobody between him and Jack Butland’s goal.

These ‘errors’ were just more in a long, long line of errors throughout the season.

Down through the years, there have been ‘errors’ that are now infamous in the Scottish game.

Etched forever in the psyche of Celtic fans especially.

The debate rages week after week as to whether its errors or cheating?

I could get into the whole allegiances issue, but I’m not going to today.

Its a sad indictment of Scottish refereeing that not one single SFA referee has been selected to go to this summer’s World Cup.

It doesn’t come as a shock, but it highlights how poor referees are in the Scottish game nonetheless.

You would think Willie Collum and his mates in the SFA would want Scottish referees to be doing better, wouldn’t you?

You’d imagine they would push for reform to elevate the standing of Scottish referees on the international stage?

But no, the SFA are happy with the standard of refereeing in Scotland.

They always have been, and it appears they always will be.

Celtic at this moment in time, is still the biggest club in the Scottish game.

Therefore, it stands to reason that they should want to lead the way when it comes to refereeing reform, shouldn’t it?

No, it doesn’t.

Celtic, just like the SFA, seem to have no quibbles with the way the game is refereed in Scotland.

Other than the odd statement when Celtic have been the victims of scandalous refereeing decisions, our club offers nothing when it comes to the possibility of reform.

Ironically, the club that seems to benefit most from refereeing ‘blunders’ is the one that has decided to lead the way when it comes to finding ‘solutions to help improve officiating’.

The Ibrox side have called on in top flight rivals to come together to thrash out ways to improve the standard of officiating in the Scottish game.

One wonders if Celtic will be amongst those who attend this summit?

If I was a betting man, I’d have my doubts.

Celtic are happy with the poor standard of officiating, so why would they bother attending this meeting?

According to the Record, the SFA have chosen not to attend the meeting.

I’m sure having their ineptitude questioned by SFA member clubs doesn’t really appeal to them.

Willie Collum prefers to pussyfoot around with Gordon Duncan on the VAR review, making the rules up as he goes along.

He recently agreed to meet with the Ibrox club to discuss ‘structural improvements to help whistlers’.

Saturday and Sunday showed how these improvements have been put into practice.

Indeed.

The idea of this summit is to gather ideas from all clubs for a way forward which will be presented to the SFA afterwards.

The likelihood is that the biggest club in Scottish football won’t be there to brainstorm.

After all, in the view of the Celtic hierarchy, there’s nothing at all wrong.

There’s nothing wrong at Celtic Park either.

Its all in the supporter’s minds.

We are world class in everything we do, on and off the pitch.

So why should we rock the boat when it comes to the standard of refereeing in Scotland?

In reality, its highly unlikely this summit will achieve anything meaningful at all.

Despite the fact the Ibrox side have offered to ‘splash the cash’ on VAR upgrades.

I’m sure Michael Nicholson has also suggested this to Dermot Desmond?

He’s just waiting on an email response from the absentee landlord when it comes to spending with money.

Something that is quite frowned upon at Celtic, and must receive explicit permission from the ‘double billionaire’.

You don’t become a double billionaire by spending willy nilly now, do you?

Anyway, don’t expect refereeing in Scotland to drastically alter as a result of this ‘summit’.

We all know there’s only one thing that could cause that to happen.

And it won’t.

Ibrox fans will still get to referee games involving their favourite side.

As long as they do, nothing will ever change in the Scottish game.

And you can be pretty damn sure the Ibrox side won’t leading the way when it comes to putting that subject on the agenda.

Nothing changes until that changes.

Its that simple.

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