BBC website says ***.ref Frank Cole admits he was wrong to flag Naismith offside, therefore costing Killie a goal and equaliser vs Celtic.

Jeffries says that the officials should be disciplined if proved to be making wrong decisons.

The linesman claimed it was a 'tight' call, anyone who was at the Livvy game on saturday will have witnessed what to me was the worst offside call in memory flagging Barry offside when he was about 2 yards onside when the ball was kicked.

Who knows, Barry was well clear when the kn0b raised the flag. :x

Don't think disciplining referees is an option really!

Maybe a points system where referees are judged by managers, (say a day or 2 after the game!) and assessors and a combined rating agreed. A record/table kept of these scores and used to grade referees and at the end of each season the top 12 or whatever in the country do the following seasons games?

I find that a poor idea BE! Managers don't know enough, and see things through tinted eyes when it comes to referees. What we need is more money put into the development of referees, and also for refs to actually have a better relationship with the press.

That and teams actually need to start teaching players about the rules of the game, and put them through the initial Referee's course.

Refs and linesmen have a hard job to do and dont always get it right. They have only a fraction of a second to decide the call and no matter what they do several thousand people from one or the other side will be ridiculing them for thier decision - especially if it is controversial.

Having said that - these people chose to get involved in officiating the game and should be able to meet the required standard.

I have great respect for some refs who have the balls to speak out and admit to making a mistake or saying they didnt have clear sight of an incident so couldnt award a particular decision (such as Iain Brines the other week) but too many of them show a holier-than-thou or condescending attitude and try to make it as if the game is all about them - get rid of them and keep the small crop of decent ones.

Also - its a professional game, with professional players ... isnt it about time that at least a portion of the referees were put on professional contracts with professional wages ???? It might be a way to encourage decent refs into the game .... dont know if its still the same but even 2 or 3 years ago the referees association was bemoaning the fact that they had too few people applying .....

The counter-argument to professional referees has been for some time now that the game in Scotland can't afford them. I don't know how they're financed south of the border but with the SFA grubbing around for a sponsor at the same time as the SFL and SRU there won't be that much money kicking around. Now, between them you'd expect twelve SPL outfits to be able to fund a pool of, say, 18 professional refs, giving 50% slack for holidays and sickness etc: but if you want the linesmen and fourth officials on the list as well you're looking at every club shelling out for six officials apiece - £150K per year, minimum? Whilst that'd disappear into the Old Firm wage bill it'd be a bit more significant to ours, I'd imagine.

If we can afford professionals then, fantastic, let's have them. I can't think of many areas of business where a company's fate, its profits and possibly its solvency is decided in a split second by an amateur in a situation, in the case of some offside decisions, where it's been proven that it's physically impossible for the individual to see what he needs to in order to make the call. However, if pro's aren't something we can afford then I think we could do worse than league tables. Yes managers will inevitably be biased but, equally inevitably, those officials who make the least number of crap decisions will end up towards the top. I'm also a big fan of instant replay, but that's a horse of a different colour.

EWS, how can you say that managers don't know enough?? Kinda invalidates any opinion they have on any aspect of foot ball if you are saying guys who have built careers in the game are inexperienced!!

What I'm aiming at is that the match asessor and the managers, or a representative, of both teams meet 2 or 3 days after a game - once emotions have calmed down and away from the immediate post match - and discuss any flashpoints/incorrect decisions and agree on a rating for the referee. I think this would improve relations between clubs, referees, SFA and the media as explanation of decisions and issues on either side could be discussed. Persistently poor referees would be identified and brought into line/demoted as there would actually be a proper grading for our top officials as opposed to every class 1 ref technically being the same standard - which they are not!

Scrapping the farce that is the current offside law might make things easier - its one of the worst laws ever!!

Put it back to the way it was - ok its not perfect but everyone understands it

There's usually some new law brought into force by FIFA at the world cup - I wonder what pearl they have up there sleeve this time :?

I'm not invalidating their decision, but what I am saying is that they just don't know enough about the laws of the game...at all. And most of them would admit it. It is well known that many players, managers and pundits do not know enough about the laws of the game, **** I know of a few who have publicly admitted it.

You cannot have an unqualified manager giving a rating for a referee, especially if that referee had been involved in that particular managers match. Can you imagine if we had managers like Arsene Wenger, who fails to see anything that his team has done wrong, in the same room as a referee, trying to judge him? It just wouldn't work.

The only way we can improve relations between Managers and Referees is if the clubs actually send along delegates, managers and players to the regular meetings that the SFA hold with their referees to discuss decisions. Also, players need to actually know all the laws of the game, and I think that they should be put through the referee test, or at least a test on the laws of the game. Especially the younger ones (I remember a match with Ross County vs Hamilton u/14's where they were trying to say that you could be offside from a throw-in) and it wouldn't harm them. This guy at the Killie match will most likely be punished, just look at the fixtures and where he is thrown to. Remember the famous incident at with Rangers and Hearts last season? From getting pretty much an SPL game every week, he was thrown down to do 3rd and 2nd Division matches for a few months. That is how you punish them.

I do agree that there should be a board where managers can discuss certain decisions, shed light and have some form of input, but in the form of actually rating the referee it can't be done.

Fair comments EWS, it all boils down to the officals needing to make quick decisions which are in the main accurate.

The Killie incident was down to the ***.ref not paying attention to what was happening, the game passed him by, and it looked to me that he raised his flag out of the defenders reaction.

The one at Livvy last saturday was just a sh1t decision from one of a poor set of officials.

Why not have video replay (where available) for major flashpoints? It does not need to stop the flow of the game too much, just have the fourth official watching a TV and the ref can turn to him if necessary - if he misses the incident because he is dealing with subs etc then he misses it but at least it would add an additional safety net for poor decisions.