Rangers call for further talks with ref chief over semi-final decision

Rangers have called for further talks with Willie Collum after the Scottish Football Association’s head of referees backed his match officials over the controversial Premier Sports Cup semi-final.

Collum supported referee Nick Walsh’s decision to hand a yellow card to Celtic defender Auston Trusty for catching Rangers goalkeeper Jack Butland in the head with his boot – and the VAR team’s decision not to call a review.

Collum told the VAR Review Show: “We can support the yellow card here in terms of the criteria and the laws of the game.

“It’s also important to say there’s a subjective element to this decision and we fully respect people’s opinion if they think that’s a red card.

“But here the on-field communication is very clear from the referee.

“He talks about the studs and for him there’s no use of the studs here. So the referee comes to a conclusion that this is a reckless action rather than anything more serious.

“There’s not enough force, it’s not brutality for him and the contact is negligible.”

However, Rangers sporting director Kevin Thelwell declared the club “very, very frustrated” with the SFA’s approach following “strong conversations” and added that the club “still fundamentally disagree” with the Trusty punishment in particular.

Thelwell told RangersTV: “We all feel like it’s a dangerous precedent to be saying that striking somebody on the head is nothing short of a red card. So, from our perspective, we want to have another conversation with the SFA.

“We’ve been doing some analysis of our own over a much wider period and want to talk to them again about some of that detail for one reason and one reason only, and that is, we want greater consistency.”

Collum backed the yellow card for Rangers defender Derek Cornelius for a challenge on Johnny Kenny – because the tackle was low and caught the striker’s boot.

And the decision to penalise Anthony Ralston for handball in the box but not issue a second yellow card.

“This is not an obvious goalscoring opportunity for us, absolutely not, it doesn’t meet the criteria for that,” Collum said. “Liam Scales is behind here and also the goalkeeper has a chance to save.”

Collum did accept some mistakes were made over the course of October and early November.

The former referee admitted the officials had a “very near miss” in disallowing Marcus Fraser’s goal against Hibernian after being “disappointed with the process” over the failure to initially check whether the cross came from behind or in front of the St Mirren defender. However, he stated the right decision was ultimately made in retrospect.

Collum did accept St Mirren were wrongly penalised for offside against Mark O’Hara, who was ruled to have impeded Lawrence Shankland before a disallowed goal, which would have put the Buddies 3-1 up. The game ended 2-2.

Collum: “We have to be careful about disallowing goals for something so minor. We have been too forensic here, over-analysing something.”

Collum accepted Dundee should have had a penalty against Falkirk when Ethan Hamilton was challenged by Kyrell Wilson.

There was no comment on Motherwell attacker Ibrahim Said’s disallowed goal against the Bairns following a VAR intervention.

Kevin Thelwell was speaking to RangersTV. The exclusive interview is available to watch from Saturday morning.

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