Richmond

By Graham Barnstaple
April 11 2012

Retiring referee Charlie Richmond has stirred up a storm in the SFA with his post retirement comments.

He told the BBC last night that it appears you have to “suck up” to people to make it as a referee in Scotland and it has nothing to do with how good a referee you actually are!

This has prompted a response from both the Chief Exec of the SFA and the head of referees. Chief Exec Stewart Regan tweeted last night, "Referee appointments are based on performance. Would prefer to see consistent under performers 'retire' without feeling need to blame others."

This doesn’t explain why we have to watch other incompetents such as Crawford Allan, Alan Muir, Stevie O’Reilly, Willie Collum etc continue to bamboozle every week. If it is based upon performance then we have real problems if these are the cream of the crop!

Then today we have had John Fleming having his say, using words such as "To say I am disappointed by Charlie Richmond's comments is an understatement.”

“I consider his comments an affront to the work currently undertaken by the Scottish FA to promote and support referees at all levels.

"I am sure there will be plenty of Charlie's former colleagues who will feel misrepresented by his comments."

Sadly I am inclined to take the side ofRichmondon this one, having complained about referees just about every week. The SFA have followed the old adage of, “Methinks they protest too much.”

This would appear to be becauseRichmondhas hit a raw nerve with his comments which would make you think they have something to hide.

The number of strange decisions we have seen this season has been frightening and is something the SFA need to look at rather, than hiding their head in the sand.