BBC Sportscene pundit Tam McManus has said that referee Andrew Dallas had an “absolute shocker” in the Rangers v St Mirren game on Saturday, and said he was swayed by the home fans at Ibrox.
He gave four penalties, with Rangers scoring three of them in the 4-0 win, and McManus said in his column in the Herald, “I can’t recall a team being awarded that many penalties in one match”.
He claimed it rightly shone another spotlight on the standard of officiating in the Scottish Premiership.
“In my opinion, for at least two of the penalties, Dallas guessed and has been swayed by the Ibrox crowd,” McManus said.
“Most would agree that the first Rangers penalty was a definite foul on Jermain Defoe. There’s no debate on that one.
“But the other three decisions are very contentious. Two handballs that are just outside the box in my view, and a disputed foul by Paul McGinn on Defoe which wasn’t a penalty.
“A lot of Rangers fans argued a later foul on Morelos should have been another penalty, which I agree with, but to give a fifth penalty to Rangers would have taken a near-decapitation in the box. So, all in all, Dallas got one decision right out of five, in my opinion.
“That is completely unacceptable.”
OPINION
McManus doesn’t believe referees are naturally biased towards Rangers and Celtic, but he does think that certain referees aren’t up to the job when they’re faced with having to make a decision in front of 40,000 or 50,000 screaming fans. Being awarded four penalties and not giving one that should have been given is peculiar and it goes to show that VAR is needed across all parts of the game. These sorts of decisions have a huge impact on the season and we need to ensure that they’re right. VAR is going to be introduced in the Premier League next season but there are issues of cost and of the number of qualified referees in the Scottish game. The SFPL will continue to monitor VAR in use but it’s clear that it’s needed and they should be making steps towards getting it implemented as soon as possible. In the meantime, bad decisions will continue to be made and the majority of them, seemingly, in favour of the big clubs.