Livingston manager David Martindale accepts honest mistake after SFA admit penalty error at Rangers

Livingston boss David Martindale has accepted that “an honest mistake” was made after the Scottish Football Association admitted his side should have had a penalty in their 2-1 defeat at Rangers last Saturday.

Martindale revealed that video assistant referee John Beaton had been in touch with him this week after he controversially did not advise referee Ross Hardie to review footage of Tete Yengi’s goal-bound shot hitting the lower arm of Gers defender Emmanuel Fernandez while the match was level at 1-1.

“John phoned me personally,” said the Livi boss. “Good discussion. I’ve not got a problem with it, honestly. It’s a mistake, an honest mistake. Let’s move on.

“There’s no use me sitting here kind of talking about it anymore because I’m not going to put any more of my energy into a decision that kind of ruined what should have been a half-decent weekend for the club.”

Martindale believes the only way to make decision-making more consistent is to move towards having full-time officials in Scottish football.

“Before the technology, it was ‘we need the technology’,” said the Livi boss. “We’ve now got the technology. I think we’ve got to get to a place where we’ve got full-time officials for at least the two top leagues, whether that’s a bank of 14, 16, I don’t know, 24 officials.

“Are you going to be better at your job if that’s your only job? Are you going to be better at your job if you’re putting more hours into your job? For me, that’s the only avenue open now.

“I don’t think this is a refereeing problem, I think it’s a Scottish football problem. It’s not something we can push to the side and say ‘the referees need to deal with it’, I don’t think that’s fair.

“As a collective, SPFL, SFA and the clubs, we need to find a better solution to use the technology better, and I think the only way to do that would realistically be full-time referees for the top two leagues.

“Are we better as a club because we’re full-time? Yeah. So how does that not correlate into a refereeing position?

“I understand the refs that are currently in the positions, they’ve probably got well-paid primary jobs. But we could start it off now, so we’ll get a bank of 14, or whatever, referees could be learning their trade on a part-time basis and coming into a full-time role in three, four years’ time.”