I see on Twitter the Hearts fans up in arms re Willie Collum. Apparently they think he picks on them due to the number of sending offs when he is referee. 

This got me thinking how many of our players he has sent off. Is it up there with the 9 Hearts quoting? Anyone know?

Not to worry, once the Europeans get a taste of his blunders they will just assume our referees are on a par with our footballers.

This foray into Europe is not new for Collum. He's been a FIFA listed ref since 2006.  He's classified as one of only 24 FIFA elite refs in the world. He's refereed international matches and Uefa Cup. Ref for U-19 European Championship final in 2008. This year the Champs league qualifier between Basel and Maccabi which he made a balls of. He's also been part of refereeing teams at a number of European games. He's obviously got something FIFA and UEFA like though I cant think what other than refereeing standards are bad around the world.

There are more than 24 in the world .... 

looking at FIFA.com they reference various conferences for 'elite' referees and in various places quote 23 from UEFA, 10 from Asia, 9 from Africa, 3 from Oceania and no clear numbers from North, Central and South America. I cant find an actual list but one blog I found noted 3 MLS referees as part of the FIFA 'elite' ranking and at least two of them are on a par with Collum's inconsistencies .... we shudder at the names Baldomero Toledo, Jair Marrufo and worse still, David Gantar over here every bit as much as Scottish supporters do over the name Willie Collum !

seems the "elite" referee status is a course much like the UEFA 'A', 'B' and 'C' licenses for coaches .... came across this reference over here: http://www.concacaf.com/article/elite-refereeassessor-course-opens-in-florida

 

 

 

 

 

 

Might have picked that up wrong and its 24 from Europe

yeah, I reckon so ... but it made me look at the 'CONCACAF' list .... and trust me, the names on there are just as scary.

 

Alex, I know, see the link to the game I posted on page 1. Three major rickets (only 2 shown) by Collum which heavily influenced the game. Apparently, he's been refereeing since he was about sixteen, clearly he couldn't play it, who would choose to referee at that age rather than play.

35 minutes ago, wynthank15 said:

Alex, I know, see the link to the game I posted on page 1. Three major rickets (only 2 shown) by Collum which heavily influenced the game. Apparently, he's been refereeing since he was about sixteen, clearly he couldn't play it, who would choose to referee at that age rather than play.

Actually, the truth is that he was recruited by the FBI at an early age as part of their master plan to discredit the game in Western Europe through shocking refereeing decisions.  This was in the vain hope that we would all stop watching football and would spend our money watching American "football" instead.

I guess that last post also explains MLS refereeing too !

You may have stumbled onto something here DD , he's already discredited Scottish refereeing, his performances in Europe have also been laughable, how this guy is in the top flight of referees in both jurisdictions invites conspiracy theorists like yourself.

15 minutes ago, wynthank15 said:

You may have stumbled onto something here DD , he's already discredited Scottish refereeing, his performances in Europe have also been laughable, how this guy is in the top flight of referees in both jurisdictions invites conspiracy theorists like yourself.

Just when we thought our game couldn't become more of a laughing stock abroad, some clown decides to send this idiot to an international tournament. Hopefully he will be shown up as the inept buffoon he is. 

Today collum managed to unite both sets of fans at a game in disbelief at his utter incompetence. Some utterly awful decisions at a basic level made wrong. How he is a top flight ref is unbelievable.