Scottish FA referees chief Willie Collum hits back at John Brown over corruption claim

Scottish football’s head of referees, Willie Collum, has hit back at comments from former Rangers player John Brown and insists there’s no corruption in the national game.

The Ibrox club were fined £3,000 by the Scottish FA after Brown, while commentating on Rangers TV, described a decision not to allow the club a goal against Hibernian as “corrupt”, and doubled down on his allegation when given the opportunity to row back on his comment.

Rangers protested the fine and said Brown had spoken “spontaneously and emotionally” and that his comments “come with the territory” of live broadcasting.

Asked for his view on the comments, Collum was quick to defend his referees and dismiss the allegation.

“What I would say is that I don’t think there is any corruption in Scottish football”, he told STV. “I don’t think our officials are corrupt.

“Absolutely not. I’m guaranteeing that. I wouldn’t be sitting here if that were the case.

“Our referees are like any referees, and they will make mistakes.

What I would say is that when mistakes are made we always try to improve on them. Always.

“But there’s no corruption in Scottish refereeing.”

The former top-flight referee says those kinds of allegations aren’t welcome, and he prefers to put his energy into raising standards and supporting referees ahead of another busy and challenging season.

“We don’t want any comments about corruption or referees,” Collum said. “I’m focusing on the job at hand.

“For me, that’s to prepare the referees and make sure they are well prepared for the new season, focused and ready.

“We leave these kinds of matters to be dealt with by other people.”

‘I would say it is corrupt’

The controversy over Brown’s comments comes from Rangers TV’s coverage of the team’s match away against Hibs in May.

Rangers thought they had opened up a two-goal lead in the game, when Nico Raskin believed he had scored before a clearance from Rocky Bushiri.

Referee Nick Walsh and his assistants didn’t give the goal and Hibs went on to equalise moments later through Kieron Bowie. A lengthy VAR check by Andrew Dallas reached the conclusion there was no camera angle that proved the ball had fully crossed the line.

Rangers later slammed the decision and called for the introduction of goal-line technology but Brown’s disciplinary charge comes from his words in commentary at the time of the incident.

“I would say it is corrupt,” the former defender said, before commentator Tom Miller replied: “Well, I’m not sure we can actually say that.”

Brown then doubled down, replying: “Well, I am saying it”.

Rangers insist that those were “spontaneous, corrected remarks” that should not meet the threshold for action and said that they presented the disciplinary panel with numerous other examples that showed inconsistency in what was being punished.

“These incidents raise legitimate questions about Scottish FA rules and how consistently they are enforced,” a club spokesperson said in a lengthy statement. “To our knowledge, none of these cases appear to have resulted in charges against the respective clubs.

“The lack of consistency with the Scottish FA’s policing of similar incidents leaves more questions than answers. That is why we will be contacting the Scottish FA chief executive and president to seek clarity on what policies and processes the compliance officer has in place, if any, to ensure a consistent and proportionate approach to enforcement and the equal treatment of member clubs.

“We shall also be asking the Scottish FA whether they accept that a rule that cannot be applied consistently across all clubs and all platforms risks losing credibility as a fair and enforceable regulation.

“Our aim here is to understand the rationale behind the differing outcomes. A lack of consistency, or the perception of it, undermines confidence in the disciplinary process and exposes all member clubs to uncertainty about what is and is not allowed.”

The club says they did not reference other examples because they believe they should have resulted in sanctions, but to highlight inconsistency.

Action being taken over comments made by club employees is relatively rare, but BBC pundit Richard Foster was charged by compliance officer Martin Black for a similar rule breach last year.

Foster was disciplined because he was a Motherwell coach when he appeared on radio in his role as a pundit and described an SFA description of a refereeing decision as “lies”.

He later apologised but was given a six-game suspension over the outburst.