SPL Referees Threaten Strike

SPL referees are threatening a strike over wages. They think the £575 they get per SPL match is not enough, and want almost a 40% pay rise to £800 per match, but the SPL are only offering a rise to £600.

I find the deliberate coinciding of the threat with the start of the SPL season is disgusting, selfish and naive. They clearly are in a different mind to not only the supporters but the players and managers too.

All the teams have finished or are finishing their pre-season schedule and are now ready to go for the big kick-off. But things could now go all haywire with the possibility of a later starting date.

And then there’s the fans, who are ready and excited about the new season, who are now unsure whether or not the SPL will kick off when it’s supposed to, and the excitement has somewhat come to a halt.

But the referees know by coinciding this threat of a strike with the SPL kick off, they will get exactly what they want, even a ridiculous 40% pay rise.

Their wants may be justified if they did so by their performance. Some, or most, of the SPL referees are clearly just not any good. They make bad, match/season changing wrong decisions, as happened to Aberdeen at Motherwell last season. And then there’s the OF bias. It, however, may not be that they favour the old firm, but that they allow themselves to be intimidated by the crowd at Parkhead and Ibrox, and are too scared to give penalties against Celtic or Rangers (and which, due to, Craig Levein has just been handed a £5000 fine).

£800 for 90 minutes work? Read that again. Deary me.