An ode to ballsy Willie Collum as ref chief's quest for an unflinching truth melts an old cynic

The trouble with transparency is that those who demand it can’t handle the truth when it comes to football.

Willie Collum is to be commended for handling two hours of airtime on Radio Clyde while answering questions from the public in his capacity as the SFA’s man in charge of referees. He could not have been more truthful while flagging up errors by match officials from last season, and even admitting

Scotland couldn’t afford to have full-time referees. But the conversation turned to inevitable insinuations of favouritism on the part of referees with alleged affiliations to one club or another. You’ll know who they are, the clubs and not the referees. This is where transparency becomes a flexible fix.

You’re in favour if your team doesn’t suffer. You’ll ignore it if transparency doesn’t suit your argument. Collum once had a death threat delivered to his home in a telephone call by someone who clearly wasn’t interested in transparency and wanted to take accountability to the level of criminality.

But Collum should continue to fight the good fight as a passionate advocate of doing the right thing out of respect for his
profession. Society’s problem, as it applies to football, is a refusal to accept authority and a compulsion to allege institutionalised bias.

Meanwhile . surprised the SFA’s marketing department haven’t brought out the “Evolution Not Revolution” t-shirts for sale in time for next month’s Nations League games against Croatia and Portugal.

It would certainly be a commercial strategy to fit in with the new definition of football that’s evolving under Steve Clarke. The concept that results don’t matter. What happened in the last two matches against Poland and Portugal, non-wins I think we have to start