Andy Walker has been speaking to the Go Radio Football Show and has stated his disbelief at the standard of refereeing decisions in Scotland. This comes after it was confirmed that both Nick Walsh and John Beaton will be involved in the Viaplay League Cup Final come 3pm on Sunday afternoon.
Like Celtic supporters all over the world, Walker has taken umbrage at the idea of either of these men being considered the ‘best in the country’. Both have been involved in ridiculous decisions lately and have been known in the past to give some severely erroneous calls in favour of a certain club that plays out of Ibrox and wear blue.
Walker was discussing a couple of incidents that saw both officials scrutinised in the past few weeks. One involved Beaton giving an initial on-field decision of a yellow card to Kyle Vassell for a high challenge on Hibs’ Marjan Cabraja recently, then going to the monitor only to turn it to a red – much to Walker’s dismay. Likewise, Walsh have Josh Ginnelly of Hearts a quickfire double booking in the space of a minute to send him to the changing room early against Dundee United.
He said: “If you’re telling me that John Beaton is one of our better and more experienced referees! He was right next to it and didn’t do anything about it. I think he showed a yellow card and he’s been asked to go over to the (VAR) monitor because (they’re saying) ‘hang on a minute, you can send him off, we can justify this. It’s ridiculous.
“I saw Nick Walsh a few weeks ago at Tynecastle. Josh Ginnelly, who was given two yellows in the space of 30 seconds – ridiculous! If he’s wasting time then you can add it on at the end. Why doesn’t he just do that?!”
The ex-Celtic striker reckons the men in the middle need to raise the threshold for a red card as it is spoiling the games in the Scottish Premiership at present. He continued: “I think the fans want to see 11 vs 11. I don’t care what colour your strip is, fans want to see it. I would say to referees ‘can we not do this, can we not have a higher bar?’ It looks to me, and I go to a Scottish game every week, if you can possibly punish a player and team then the referees are doing it.
“I think it looks awful and when you look at the World Cup was refereed and some of the games in England, there’s a very high bar for punishment. I think it helps the game
Paul Gillespie
English referees are more sensible and intelligent in the main.
Also, they are not biased for one club.