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Too many refs in jobs in which they're never questioned or have to justify their performance - lawyers, accountants, education officers, politicians - so they become uber-petulant when anyone dares to do so. Collum was the prime example of that.

According to the match programme on Saturday the VAR Official was Steven McLean. The same VAR Official from the Aberdeen cup tie. The same referee who put in a shocking performance in the home game v Rangers a week before the cup tie and was loudly booed off at the end. Obviously just a coincidence as I'm sure he holds no grudges.

Played amateur fitba for 25 years and this is on my bucket list, might get myself fit and try next year Well done pal

Very pleased for you. Well done!

That's me in the home left-back shirt! It was an amazing experience, I loved every minute of it and is was a privilege to play on such a good pitch. The ball was really zipping of the surface, something that is not obvious when watching games on TV. If anyone on here plays football to a reasonable level and hasn't given this a go, please do, you won't regret it. Hopefully they'll do this again next season. Starting shirts cost £200-£300, which is a small price to pay for such an amazing opportunity. Substitutes are drawn from a raffle of Well Society members. This will stay with me forever!

I think it is beyond the influence of one club (out with the OF) to have any influence. The clubs need to join together to call out specific instances and make it clear collectively that they don't accept the current standards. Rangers and Celtic have the power to look after themselves. To my mind Rangers have been refereed differently this season since they made a song and dance about the Trusty incident in the league cup semi final back in November. It works for them. Football is so partizan in nature that week by week supporters will shift their opinion based on the hot topic of the week. Look at Falkirk, St Mirren , Hearts fans comments in recent weeks on social media in relation to Motherwell for evidence. For me the most obvious and blatant miscarriage of justice this season was the Fernandez deliberate handball against Livingston at Ibrox. Clear and deliberate denying a certain goal. It could be argued that that decision alone changed the course of not just that game, but Livingston's season. The decision to not award a penalty was so clearly indefensible that eventually the reason given was an ' honest mistake ' by the referee and VAR. The temptation by supporters of other clubs is to say f**k Livingston, we would rather they suffer than us, but by allowing Livingston to fend for themselves, we are also building the culture where Motherwell and every smaller club has to fend for themselves when it is their turn. What should happen in instances like that is that the 10 non OF clubs should join together in support of Livingston and collectively say 'we are not accepting this as a standard for the professional game in Scotland ' My opinion of that particular incident was that it was easier for the officials not to give the penalty than to give it because the game was at Ibrox and Rangers were under pressure at that point in the game. I don't think there is any conspiracy about this. It is human nature when under pressure to consciously or subconsciously choose the outcome that causes the least discomfort to ourselves. That is why the 10 Non OF clubs have to make it as uncomfortable as possible for the referees to take the easy way out in 50/50, 60/40 situation. The reason why that particular incident would have been a very powerful one to get behind was that it was 100% a penalty. No subjectivity, no interpretation of the rules. Until the smaller clubs coordinate in this way nothing will change.

The problem isn’t VAR itself; it’s the clowns running it.

It’s the inconsistency in decisions that’s actually doing my tits in. You can say what you want about Slattery, but the St Mirren player turned and actually swung at him. We were all debating afterwards if he’d caught him, it’s a red all day no question, but I always thought the intent was enough. Same as when a player flies in two-footed (like Lee Lucas did) but still misses, players know VAR is watching now so its a waste of time feigning things. Slattery still got utterly vilified, yet Cantwell was pretending he’d been elbowed in the face a few seasons ago at Fir Park, ironically against Slattery, and that just gets brushed off as per, no meltdown. Then you’ve got that 7-minute spell against Falkirk last week. The ref was atrocious - gave them a free kick when McGinn was fouled first, let a blatant foul on Just go without even a word, and then the coup de grâce: the missed penalty and the sending off. I say 7 minutes, but the whole game followed the same pattern. Even in one of Willie Collum’s reviews, he talks about a similar incident where no penalty was given when a player’s head was clipped at knee height, and the reasoning aligns with putting himself in danger. You just know he’ll be inconsistent again the next time he’s on. After all, he was greeting about the Balmer decision last season against Killie where the player was entitled to challenge for the ball, but Kofi wasn't. It still boggles my mind that we had 100 world class appilcants and he's the one for the role. Back in the day, when wrongful red cards were quickly appealed I think 8 or so from Collum was successfully appealed over the piece, whereas others were 1. Honestly, what is the game coming to when players are getting sent off for DOGSO on the halfway line? Or even reading Kevin Clancy's description of the Celtic incident. I would love to be optimistic and say it's going to get worse before it gets better, but I'll just stick to it's going to get worse. More changes around the World Cup will happen as per, then you have Arsene Wenger's offside rule currently getting tested, then that will be implemented no doubt, but it will still contain the same old annoyances. Apologies for the moan but I can seldom muster up the strength to post on here nowadays, so thankful that we have been playing the way we have been. It would be nice to see more emphasis put on it; they did a questionnaire in the summer and released the results, and most people who voted wanted it rid of. I think they even started a petition or something on change.org, I'm positive I remember that being at 1.5k signatories.

The attitude towards Motherwell on social media has definitely swung recently. No doubt the inevitable 'too big for their boots' backlash accounts for some of that, but since Slattery's ban, 'diving cheats' is thrown out every time one of our guys goes down. Luckily, we have fair minded, competent referees who are immune to that stuff.

Sorry, I couldn't disagree more. I don't, in any way way condone what Slattery seemed to do (it wasn't proved beyond reasonable doubt), and he has been punished by the SFA. In short he was singled out for special treatment. We've seen several other breaches of Rule 77 since with no action being taken. As the governing body, the SFA and its employees must not get involved in petty vendettas against clubs. It and they should act with the utmost decorum and fairness. If it cannot do this then it will lose the respect of clubs, players and last but by no means least, the paying public and rightly so. At that point, the games a bogey. As Spiderpig says, the club and in my view the Society should call out the level of refereeing and VAR incompetence publicly.

I disagree. Blaming Slattery here gives the officials a pass. He’s already been punished, so anything that happens to him or his teammates following this should be judged on its own merits, not dragged in from previous incidents. We’ve already seen that different standard applied against Falkirk and Hearts. If officials can’t apply the laws fairly and impartially regardless of history, they shouldn’t be in the job. Suggesting a player or team can be refereed to a different standard because of the past just excuses poor officiating, normalises inconsistency and, at worst, bias. That’s on the referees, not the player.

Jennings? Valakari?

Its more than incompetence now, thats two games in a row, we have had ridiculous decisions go against us, potentially costing us 6 points and if you add in the pittodrie shit show, a cup semi final place and losing an important player for two games with the Slattery debacle. The club needs to be stronger and start calling out this nonsense with the SFA, as do all the clubs, the whole set up is a incompetent shambles not fit for purpose intent on pandering to two clubs at the expense of the other 40.

Yeah, there's no way that one's going down as an incorrect decision. I'm more interested in hearing Collum explain how both the referee and VAR managed to miss the Maswanhise penalty. My money's on a shrug.

MJC - (potentially enjoying) taking one for the team

I suspect what we will be told if it’s even discussed, is that the player on the ground didn’t make much of an effort to head the ball and didn’t move his head much so Welsh was always going to hit him on the head and as such shouldn’t have attempted to hit the ball. Not saying I think that’s correct just what we will be told as I’ve no doubt that they’ve all spent the last day thinking up a solution to their ineptitude and fuck up.

I keep saying this but foreign referees for VAR and an ex player to give context is what’s needed. Also if - as McGarry indicates in his article - Motherwell are being refereed to a different standard than other teams then the person to blame for that is Slattery. I’m not saying that the referees are right but if the article is correct then no cheating, no different standard. Personally I’m not sure it’s all down to the Slattery incident and more down to incompetence.

He will be challenged. But, as I said elsewhere on the forum, he’ll contort to justify the decision.

Won't matter what size of pool we have if they don't know the Laws of the game and are not held accountable when that ignorance shows like it did Saturday. Will anybody challenge Collum to explain why 3 of his team, 5 if you include the Asst Refs, either didn't know the Law or decided to ignore it? Not a chance.

Alex Gorrin was in that mould. He was a dead cert for a yellow most games from smashing somebody but really tidy with the ball.

To be fair they aren't bottom purely down to the goalkeeper. He looks decent but wouldn't be one i would be interested in

Prior from Livingston, the team at the bottom the league, heading for the championship with the most goals conceded so far, aye ok then 🤦‍♂️

If that’s a penalty, we might as well start coaching our strikers to get down to ground level and start diving head-first into the path of defenders’ boots at every opportunity in the box. Oh wait, that’d be a foul for the defender.

Another way to look at it is we’re not just dealing with a small pool, we’re stuck with exactly the type of personalities that are drawn to refereeing. Average Joes in the real world with small man syndrome who suddenly get to throw their weight around with impunity on the pitch.

When you take try and take out the subjectivity, you end up with the current hand ball rules. There are multiple issues that need to be dealt with, from refs not understanding the game to players being coached to cheat. One of the biggest challenges is the small pool of available talent and how to address that.