Keith Jackson criticizes Rangers in the Daily Record following the latest Ibrox drama
Keith Jackson has criticized the Rangers’ “ridiculous” accusations that Willie Collum will no longer be playing in their SPFL matches following his judgment in the Old Firm rivalry.
According to the Daily Record writer, up until they pulled the Collum card, adding a “flamethrower to their argument,” the Gers were holding their own in the aftermath of the Alistair Johnston incident (Monday Jury, 8 January, page 41).
Collum played VAR in the Gers’ 2-1 loss.
Collum was on VAR duty in the Gers’ 2-1 defeat at Parkhead and decided there was no case to answer after stills were shown of Abdallah Sima offside in the build-up, which would have overturned any penalty decision anyway.
Rangers met with refs chief Crawford Allan and asked for the VAR audio to be released but then protested that Collum should be taken off their SPFL matches.
Jackson wrote: “Rangers were fighting the good fight on behalf of all of Scottish football until they played the Willie Collum cards and took a flamethrower to their argument. Questions should be asked of VAR but eye-popping paranoia renders them ridiculous.
Questions certainly need to be asked of the use of VAR from officials all over the UK let alone Scotland and Rangers were indeed trying to fight a battle that every football club needed.
However, there was simply no need to request that Collum be removed from their games as it indeed threw a “flamethrower” to any justified protests they felt they had.
The statement put out by the club was a bit sketchy at best and could indeed have been seen as a ploy to deflect their disappointing Old Firm defeat to Celtic.
However, they were well within their right to question the use of VAR but not when it got too personal for them, that’s when developments got bordering-on ridiculous.
The SFA and Rangers don’t have the best histories together, so this argument was never going to end well with both sides defending themselves in continual statements.
An agreement will likely never be reached, and it may be time to move on now.
In other Rangers news, the club want to sign a player from the Eredivisie and his price may
be cut by £5million.