There’s been a lot of debate about the referees recently, whether they are competent, whether they are biased, and importantly, how they are trained, and how they are promoted.
There is undeniably a problem, and we thought we’d ask someone who might know.
Derek Crothers has been there, and he tells us what he thinks…and why.
Over two decades of promoting referees for a variety of reasons other than core ability is about to come to fruition with talk of introducing foreign referees for the Scottish Premiership.
Do I believe foreign referees are the right answer? – Short term maybe! long term – definitely not.
But, do I believe that a new Head of Referees from out with Scotland at the helm of the Scottish FA could be the solution? –
ABSOLUTELY!
John Fleming, Head of Referees at the Scottish FA: how his position is still tenable is laughable. It amazes me how all that has gone on this season, he has managed to dodge any share of the blame. He is the guy that recruits, develops, coaches and promotes the current crop of referees, with his silence this season it is clear he is only too happy to throw the guys under the bus!
Any promotion system in process at theScottish FA that recognises Andrew Dallas as “talent” needs critical examination – and urgently. Don’t get me wrong, if promotions were made on “ego” alone Andrew would be top of the tree. A fast track process from Amateur and Junior football was his route to senior football. Then, barely on the senior list and into top flight Premiership football, and after committing a Laws of the Game error in a match that would end any other match officials career – promotion to the FIFA list.
Nominated by the Scottish FA to UEFA. That’s right the place where Hugh Dallas (daddy) is deputy chairman of the referee committee and will ratify FIFA nominations from the Scottish FA!
If you thought that was murky, John Fleming was brought in as 2nd in command at the Scottish FA by Hugh Dallas when he was Head of Referees.
Sound like an open, honest and transparent process in operation?
This promotion recognised Andrew as one of the top officials in the country. When promoted from junior ranks, Andrew wasn’t even the best referee at his category let alone in Junior football.
Members of Lanarkshire Referees’ Association were quick to recognise that aligning yourself with someone like Andrew as an ally or friend so to speak had its benefits.
Step forward John Beaton, Frankie Connor and Alan Mulvanny also known in Lanarkshire as the “Dream Team”. I always sensed a hint of sarcasm when that phrase was used by Members – several befriended Andrew in Lanarkshire and the perks have come with it – Now, all four referees are now FIFA officials.
What are the chances?
The latter, Alan Mulvanny has had two spells at FIFA; he was demoted from FIFA for poor performances, no less than two seasons later promoted back on! Something which is unheard of in refereeing circles. Maybe I’m not giving credit where it is due, maybe, just maybe he is that good to get there for a 2nd round.
It’s not like there was another 38 Specialist Assistant Referees not up to the job.
Continuing on the theme of the “Dream Team” a set of officials who out with the Management of Lanarkshire, not well liked or respected by the Members due to their sheer arrogance, attitudes and contrite shown to Members. You would think Andrew was the leader of the pack, but it always came across that John Beaton was the one that influenced the thinking of the other three.
Speaking of John, in all my years as a Member of Lanarkshire I can’t ever remember a match official ever putting themselves in such a precarious position to have their integrity called into question. Photo’s in a football themed bar after you’ve officiated at an old firm game?
It begs the question – if a dubious decision had gone against the home side, would John have been in such a bar posing for selfies as such?
Then there comes the death threats – despicable to happen to any human being!
However, rumours are rife that they could be fabricated! Who knows, but what I do know is that anyone who can call a Member with learning difficulties at official training a derogatory name is probably capable of anything.
Maybe if the Association Treasurer or Management Committee at the time had a bit more backbone to deal with such an incident, John may not be in the position that he currently occupies! Although, when you don’t have an open, transparent and fair process of promoting officials, higher powers in positions of power will always protect their prodigies.
Promotions to the Senior list of Referees in Scotland haven’t really changed in the years I’ve been a Member of Lanarkshire. Supervisors come out, watch and give feedback and produce a match report giving a mark on performance. All supervisors (observers) are handpicked by John Fleming and they generally jump to his tune.
If you scratch his back there might be a wee trip abroad to the winter training camp in La Manga or a Match Abroad supervising for UEFA (touch on that later). The training camp in January 2018 had more supervisors and coaches in attendance than match officials, sounds like a good wee jolly boys outing for Fleming and friends.
Supervisors are continuously frustrated with reports that are completed. The referee is not happy with some aspect of the report. A few phone calls later an observer could be resubmitting his report to John Fleming, somewhat diluted. At the end of the season reports from all match officials are discussed at a meeting to decide who is to be promoted.
You would think the best performing referees over the season with the best marks get promoted – no chance! Age, location, how many officials in Association at that level, occupation, who your friends are (clique), who your father was, and a tendency to toe the party line, all come into play.
Occupation plays a major role in Fleming’s promotion criteria. How many of our top officials are a checkout assistant at ASDA? Maybe just coincidence that they’re not good enough. However, we do have a plethora of Doctors, Lawyers, Police Officers, Fire Fighters, Teachers and MPs.
Maybe these guys are just better referees. When you have a professional job title or maybe when you make an error on a live TV match and your name and occupation is dropped by the commentators it just sounds better.
John Fleming; his coaching is mundane, predictable and repetitive. They often have the feel that they have been cobbled together at the last minute. Training days at the Oriam in Edinburgh are always the same format.
On one occasion John Fleming was at such a training day and had a measuring wheel for measuring distance. Match officials were asked to pace out a wall of 10 yards and he would then measure out the distance. Just let that sink in for a minute; this is the top class coaching making our match officials better, just imagine you have given up precious family time to attend!
Immense pressure is put on match officials to attend these events. God forbid you have to call off for whatever reason!!
During the snow last year when the “red alert warning” was issued by the Met Office, I unfortunately found myself in that very position. As a person who works in Logistics, all annual leave was cancelled due to losing 3 days service. An email was sent to the Scottish FA development department at the earliest opportunity, explaining the exceptional circumstances. Given it would be the 1st training day in 13 years as an official that I wouldn’t be able to attend I didn’t see it being a big issue. How wrong was I to think that!
On the Friday afternoon in came an email from Fleming highlighting how “unacceptable” failure to attend the training day was. How “important” keeping your availability up to date. I emailed Fleming back outlining my position as I had previously done on the Thursday to the department and apologising for the late call off, and that it was out of my hands!
You would think that would be an end to the matter! No chance, this is Fleming at the Scottish FA we’re talking about, Saturday evening in comes another email from the Association Manager George Drummond.
The tone of his email was appalling, also going along the same lines as Fleming’s email. “Unacceptable“, “you know better” and “you know in advance of the training dates” etc. I could not believe that I was sitting having to type up another email explaining my circumstances of being a late call off, just imagine having to cancel attendance for your FULL TIME employment, the employment that pays your mortgage
The words of peer pressure were ringing in my mind, and given how I knew Fleming operated, me being in the position of pushing for promotion, failure to attend was ample opportunity to be used as an excuse for Fleming and the SFA, for when you don’t get promoted.
However, that still wasn’t an end to the matter, pulled to one side at official training on the Tuesday night by George Drummond who informed me that Referee Committee Member Brian Winter was disgusted and had taken umbrage to my email response, a guy who makes decisions on referee promotions.
What chance do you have now? Cards marked by Fleming and Lanarkshire’s representative Winter.
To this day Brian Winter hasn’t spoken to myself, a person I have went on holiday with on many occasions, bearing a grudge over an email. Just another one of Fleming puppets who will dance to his tune for a title at the Scottish FA.
The aforementioned being one of many excuses Fleming will use for guys who don’t gain promotion on the back of a season when they’ve performed to a high standard, evident through match reports and match report marks.
Never made a training day, never passed the yoyo test (guys promoted who’ve never passed the yoyo test) failed the Laws of the Game test, latterly renamed to quiz due to the number of failures. You don’t get the pass mark in the test, er em quiz bet your bottom dollar there would be an email from Fleming come Monday morning with the usual tone “unacceptable“. Body fat too high, not 10% body fat, some guys would need a tummy tuck to have 10% body fat. All of the above excuses are passed off in May when Referees don’t get a promotion.
Furthermore, Fleming always seems to get bogged down with insignificant details. For instance, for all the major controversial decisions this season – the last batch of coaching clips sent out by Fleming is for match officials to make sure the ball is in the arc at the taking of a corner kick.
Forget violent conduct or major game changing decisions which can decide the outcome of a match.
I remember I refereed the SFL U17s League Cup Final whilst operating as a Category 3 development referee. Livingston v Queens Park, a game in which Andrew Robertson (now of Liverpool FC) was a standout player and probably didn’t deserve to be on the losing side. However, great day and great occasion, at an early stage of your Refereeing career, getting to lead out your own team of match officials.
The game went well from a referee’s point of view; no one was talking about us after the match – job done in my opinion. Monday morning 8am I received a phone call from the Scottish FA. It was Fleming and for 37 minutes I was lambasted not for my performance, but for instructing the 4th official to remain in the dressing room whilst the Assistants and myself got warmed up for the match. Apparently I had alienated the 4th official and not made him feel a part of the team!
Given I was delivering pre match instructions of what I had witnessed when I was an Assistant Referee in a Junior Cup Final match to a now Category 1 Referee. No praise or note of any achievement was given during the 37 minute call and at one stage I was tempted to hang the phone up given how small his comments were rendering my refereeing capabilities.
In all my tenure as a Referee (13 years) 8 of them being a Senior Listed Referee have I ever witnessed a 4th official warming up with the Match Officials pre match.
Why would the 4th Official warm up pre match? To then stand at the side of the pitch for 90 minutes! Have a look at the next match you attend of the match officials warming up pre match!!!!
Needless to say it wasn’t the last phone call to be had from Fleming, but as other officials had confirmed they have received these calls also. He’s a guy who bears a grudge and if your card is marked wave goodbye to your progression up the refereeing ladder. Many changing room discussions often had a theme of Fleming, in Senior football all the way to grassroots.
What Fleming has instilled now is a mantra of – it’s okay to be “wrong”, and mistakes aren’t penalised. More the opposite. In fact with match officials being rewarded with promotions and Cup Finals.
What message does this send out to Match Officials?
Do they perform self analysis on their matches and ask “how did I get that wrong”?
How do I prevent that from happening again?
Not so sure it happens, as match officials, especially at the top are continuously rewarded with the top matches in the country week after week after week. Do they really bother? Begs the question!
Examples of cronyism have been evident long before my time as a referee, Hugh Dallas was appointed 4th official at the World Cup Final in2002.
Who was charge of Referees at such a tournament? – George Cummings!
Former Lanarkshire Referee Association Member and former Head of Referees at the Scottish FA. And more recently you have Willie Young supervising a UEFA Champions League match – Hugh Dallas pal!
There was also a nice wee “gig” away for some midweek UEFA Cup action for Iain Brines, long time friend of Fleming. Maybe all these appointments were just made on merit alone?
From just the few instances I have outlined in this article it is clear for all to see that John Fleming is a rabbit caught in the headlights. He is devoid of a plan with no vision, he is overseeing the worst batch of match officials in decades, albeit most of it, if not all of it, being his own doing. Fleming is a guy who has instilled a fear factor within officials, with bullying tactics, especially upcoming referees for all of the wrong things. He is happy to promote officials that tick boxes, reward officials with prestigious appointments when the standards are below acceptable levels. The most important boxes aren’t being ticked – ABILITY and PERFORMANCE!
When a football team isn’t getting results and performing, the manager is changedwith a better coach being brought in to steer the ship.
Do I think Fleming should be sacked? NO!
Controversial given the above – however I think he should be taking stock of his tenure at the Scottish FA and ask himself; has he improved the standards of our match officials?
Does he provide the world class coaching our match officials deserve?
Does he have a plan and vision to make our officials better?
In my opinion NO he doesn’t – he should show a bit of decorum and have some dignity about himself and do the right thing and resign!
How do we move forward? Who do we bring in?
You might be asking yourself. I believe it should be someone outside of Scotland, someone who isn’t a dinosaur of the Scottish FA, as that is what John Fleming is, a dinosaur of the Scottish FA, it is all he has known having come through that process himself!
If I had to name drop someone I would say Peter Walton former English Premiership Referee, now working for BT Sport as the BT Referee analysis. Peter Walton was appointed General Manager Professional Referee Organization (PRO) in North America when retiring from refereeing. He brought a professional set up to standards in the US, and is someone I believe will get Scottish Refereeing away from the current dinosaur way of thinking and coaching
What Fleming has instilled now is a mantra of – it’s okay to be “wrong” and mistakes.
A job for the boys and your friends will be rewarded would be a thing of the past.
Many of my former colleagues will no doubt read this article and say, he’s bitter because he didn’t make it to Category 1 Referee or along those lines. And everyone is entitled to their opinion. I resigned as a referee in the summer 2018 and I left with my dignity intact
. I am comfortable that I didn’t reach the top of the refereeing ladder, and through supervisor reports and marks to reflect on I know it wasn’t because I didn’t have the ability, I just didn’t tick the boxes that Fleming puts such an emphasis on!
Can all Cat 1 referees go to sleep tonight knowing you have made it purely on refereeing ABILITY?
I messaged a former colleague informing that I had been approached to write an article regarding Fleming, Scottish FA and Lanarkshire Referee Association and I asked if he could summarise all of it up for me. His response was;
“Scottish Football Association Referees can never be accused of being open, honest or transparent. Indeed I think that they appear to be a squalid, stinking, stagnant cess pit of nepotism, cronyism and an organisation that has no plan (or possibly has a plan but with no concept of how to achieve the goals), original idea or vision to move forward, but is intent in making appointments with little or no merit or validity. This includes the management structure, referee promotions and appointments, particularly those at the top who are rewarded for continued ineptitude and inadequate performances with even more prestigious appointments.”
Wow to be honest, is there anything else that needs to be said or can be said after that? !!!
This needs picked up by the media. But will they? I can’t undestand why there is silence form so many Boards and managers. Are they happy being cheated by “incompetence”?
There’s only one board’s silence we should be interested in breaking and anything else is simply distraction.
Excellent piece,we could all see the poor quality of officials and that it was more than incompetence on display ,to have it now out in the open is a welcome sign and the dam should now flood and flush all the criminals involved in this cabal to their final cess pit to where they should have been long ago.
There’s a few constant’s and recurring theme’s in the Lanarkshire Refereeing fraternity.
Bigoted.
Biased.
Clique.
Sleekit.
Underhand.
Nebulous.
Diabolical.
Rabid.
Fleming, Dallas, Dallas, Cummings, Beaton, Madden, Thomson, McLean, Collum they lead the way into the collective, self preserving, self entitlement, Lanarkshire Refereeing Masonic Society. But least we forget, the real leaders are the doing SFA, blinkered, bunkered, bumbling oafs, the biggest self preservation society in Scotland.
Should be sent to “When Saturday Comes” A half decent football magazine. I think they would go with it.
This is a good expose of what we all suspected. Incompetence and cronyism. Also a culture of fear and bullying. A real recipe for poor performance. A focus on your mistakes and the wrong types of mistakes versus what went well and how to double down on that first before what could have gone better. Dinosaur sounds like the right word. I also agree this will need changed by appointing an outside person with appropriate experience and no SFA baggage. Add the silly lack of a rule that prevents referees taking charge of games that “their club” is playing and what you have is what we’ve got.
What are the betting odds for:
The rangers international (sevco) to knock Aberdeen out of the cup + Aberdeen to have a player sent off + Sevco to get -at least one- penalty in the cup match ?
Has Bowie of Kilmarnock spoken out yet ?
that is a first class piece of writing
well done.
all the evidence quoted is the reason
i have stopped going to scottish premier
games after 50plus yrs
why pay money to a rigged and incompetent
competition.
the annoying thing is clubs like celtic
aberdeen ect do nothing to change it
Thanks for that Derek and Ralph, I would also add that you are well shot of it Derek.
Well there we have it bhoys and ghirls….. a former insiders testimony, which I have no reason to doubt is in any way not 100% accurate given what we have been witness to this season in particular, which describes the true nature of what we are dealing with in Fleming and his cess pit of minions.
If any of you are still asking why and how this can be allowed to happen then I suggest falling back to Occam’s Razor in your analysis…..they are all members of the Masonic or OO or both as has been exposed by many other bloggers, journalists or privateers like Paul Larkin and are following a pre-meditated agenda. Look at Maxwell’s statement the other day as well as to how it is fully supported by the Executive as a whole and anyone questioning otherwise will be singled out for the treatment. If this is still too much for any of you to accept then good luck with your explanations and rationalisations to yourself. The Brothers Grimm are a good source of further stories to your liking!
It’s no called the Scottish Rite for nothing!
All tyranny’s no matter what form they take seek to control the flow of information (check), silence any dissenting voices (check) and make questioning said tyranny a crime (check). The SFA and all its functionaries is a tyranny over our beautiful game and the only way to get them out is to starve them of what they need……money!
We are the biggest contributors to the Scottish game financially by a long way and that is where our power lies. Use it!!
Great result today against another tough opponent in Motherwell. Note Clancy and ‘Red Card’ Ross had another good game…..ha!…..well from their perspective it would have been classed as excellent, however, the bhoys just keep doing what we have been doing and pumping them. Just keep going Bhoys and there is nothing any of these fucking dirty bastards will be able to do about it and will be greeting into their sash’s n aprons come May once again. 8IAR here we go. I’ll reserve my judgement on the TT as there will be plenty of opportunity for subversion in that competition yet.
I would urge a boycott of all cup games and away games as well. If we continue to pay into a stinking and corrupt system such as this then we deserve everything we get if they manage to somehow wangle it for the huns to win anything. It is time to take a stand and hit them in the only place that it will hurt…the pockets! But I doubt it will happen unfortunately…..and we call the Dons sheep?! Deary me……
HH
Cheers
B
Well done the bhoys. We ” stood up and played the game ” as football should be .So proud of you all.
Thanks for the article. It mirrors the grievances by a pal who hit a glass after reaching a good level. He reckoned that being a big Celtic fan went against him . A friend of a pal had a different complaint after hitting the same glass ceiling but in a different part of Scotland. He claimed that having a manual occupation went against him. Ability to referee a game isn’t the most important attribute in Scotland. There seems to be plenty of other factors included. Unfortunately, as long as this continues , my blood pressure & Tourette’s will still be off the scale every week. The processes are flawed , big time. The article shines a light on the flawed process. Thanks again . HH
ENOUGH IS ENOUGH ! The stench in scottsh football as a whole is sickening.
Our game is all but finished as a spectator sport.
No more ifs or buts .
My suggestion is to replace the
sfa and their buddies ( and i mean them all , no exceptions),en bloc.
Where do we start ? Well, money is power , kill the money , the power dies.
Firstly , as previously suggested by many , the other teams in the spfl have refused to address the serious problems that are obvious to all. the reason being is fear.
well , let us help them decide what they fear most . sfa or bankruptcy. Starting now , boycott all away league games , exceptions could be semi and cup finals .
I would be surprised if the players would condemn us for our actions.with todays fiasco.
No more excuses , just action.
I Would like to pass my admiration onto the guys and gals behind the res12 issue. Which would have been resolved in any other country , but ours..
It is now time to “
Money is power , stop the money , power lessens. As others have stated above , boycott all remaining away league games. This will get the other teams attention. Reckon players will be ok with this
NO IFS OR BUTS – NOW OR NEVER.
Ultimate Goal : Removal of all governing bodies and pals . Total overhaul.
Never much goes our way when that Tory C.U.N.T. Ross is running the line!!
Apart from the underhand goings on at Paradise today, the other thing that really pissed me off was the amount of tims who were dying for Hendry to make a major boo boo when he came BN on, poor show.
Happy to see Brendan walk away from stupid BBC questions about moving to the one season wonder club Leicester City! Despite exciting some folks on here that Brendan might leave I think it highly unlikely. The press the pundits all want him to go a sure sign they are scared of his long term project at Celtic. I would think if a big club came in it would give him pause for thought – but Leicester City? I see that Ronnie Delia wasn’t mentioned for the job? Or Neil Lennon other than a real outsider? Or even our old favorite David Moyes? What about Stevie G? Lol
Articles like this, that give you a great insight into the machinations of the SFA is exactly what is required to help to clean up the game. To shine a light into the dark recesses of the “auld pals act” or the stench of corruption. We know through Res.12 exactly what has been going on, the trials of the corrupt proved that all our suspicions were accurate and that the SFA are not fit to govern Scottish football. Our hopes were raised when Regan ruled, but events since then have revealed the same ole, same ole circumstances still exist. This excellent article with its light under the bed exposes more of what we thought was the case with the Lanarkshire Refereeing Society. We witness the cheating weekly, but the proof of what we see was not complete. What this article does is to provide more evidence of complicity, another nail in the coffin of understanding how dirty and corrupt Scottish football is. A big Hail Hail to its author….
Excellent and thought provoking piece. Thanks for the article and thanks for etims for sharing.
Ross ignored an obvious ‘Well offside and persistent fouling yet flagged Hayes twice in three minutes. He is biased and corrupt. Clancy could be as well but is also incompetent at Senior level.