“Terrible referee”, “An embarrassment to the game” – Willie Collum under fire as match stats reveal common inconsistencies
Soccer Football - Scottish Cup Quarter Final - Hibernian v Celtic - Easter Road Stadium, Edinburgh, Britain - March 2, 2019 Referee Willie Collum before the match REUTERS/Russell Cheyne
Who would be a referee? Not me, that’s for sure.
Even although they command £1,000 per match fee, I just don’t think all the scrutiny and hassle is worth it.
Scotland’s referees are given the hardest time of all and there are a couple of high profile ones that come to mind. John Beaton and, of course, Willie Collum.
John Beaton is not liked very much (that’s the watered down version) by the Hoops fans for obvious reasons but the referee in last nights game against Aberdeen was pilloried by both sides of the support.
For Aberdeen fans, they feel aggrieved at Jota’s third and penalty claim not awarded.
For Celtic fans Jota’s goal awarded offside to make it 3-0 and Scott Browns foul against Starfelt for Aberdeen’s first goal has left them hard done by by the referee.
But it’s the match stats that are continually annoying the Celtic fans. For a team that has the highest possession stats they do seems to be getting the most fouls awarded against them.
And this was evident again last night.
Celtic had 64% possession but 17 fouls given against against Aberdeen’s 11.
A stat that has been a consistent feature for Celtic this season and these Celtic fans were not happy:
https://twitter.com/BhoysAnalytics/status/1491516599865643012?s=20&t=eFCZlrOaW4B9ffB5EE_hcw
Willie collum refereeing is possibly the worst I've ever seen and he is always anti celtic, some of the decisions he gave against us was criminal 😳
— Scoosh-1 (@Scoosh_1) February 9, 2022
Terrible referee. He got numerous calls wrong for both teams.
— CELTICBOB 🍀🍀🇯🇵🇯🇵 (@CELTICBOB1967) February 10, 2022
Willie Collum is a master at breaking up the play in a game of football. He is the football equivalent of poorly wean on date night.
— James Finnell (@HoudiniBhoy) February 9, 2022
Willie Collum really is a total maverick. Mental refereeing tonight. Absolutely mental
— Raffo Bonaccorsi (@Raffaelopietro) February 9, 2022
Thank god for that, Willie Collum trying to make the game all about him again 🤨
— William Dowling (@wdart89) February 9, 2022
I can say it now we’ve won @CelticFC but that was shocking from Willie Collum, blew the whistle any time a Celtic player got anywhere near a dons jersey
— Steven Daley (@DaleySteven) February 9, 2022
But Celtic as a club, as always, will carry on being professional.
No letters fired off to the SFA. Yet.