Rangers Football Club

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   No writer at the Daily Rectum has put their name to this article, no wonder - they would be targeted and attacked
Fair play to whoever they are....

Willie Collum hasn't refereed a single Rangers fixture in the four months following the club's scathing attack on him.

The official's decision to send off Daniel Candeias during the Ibrox side's win over St Mirren in November 3 was slaughtered in a lengthy Statement days later.

Rangers' attack on Collum garnered no fewer than five SFA charges and eventually resulted in a fine after a two-day Hampden hearing. 
But in the ensuing 124 days since he flashed red at Candeias, a call that was later upheld on appeal, the senior whistler has not once been put in charge of a game involving Rangers.

He's overseen eight Scottish fixtures since then but none featuring Steven Gerrard's side.
Back in November, Rangers stewed on the controversial Candeias incident for five days before unleashing both barrels when the Portuguese's appeal was thrown out.

He was shown two yellow cards in a matter of minutes, the second allegedly for making "gestures" towards St Mirren's Anton Ferdinand.
Rangers slammed the decision as "inexplicable" and alleged there were "underlying issues" with Collum's performance.
So has this incident actually influenced which games he is, or isn't, appointed to?

To date this season, Collum has taken charge of just two Rangers games - the defeat to Celtic in September and the afternoon in Paisley that launched a thousand statements.
Compare this to last season where by the same stage Collum had already officiated seven games featuring the Ibrox club.
In fact, there was never more than a run of three top-flight fixtures throughout the entire campaign where Collum and Rangers weren't paired.

During the 2016/17 campaign , Collum refereed four Rangers matches, a total he could easily still surpass this term, but none between January 28 and April 23.
In December 2018, SFA chief Ian Maxwell insisted there were no plans to keep Collum away from certain games.
Further still, he said it was never even discussed.

He said: "Willie will be allocated games throughout the usual methods by our referee department.
"It's not something there's been any discussions internally about. The referee allocations will be made on an ongoing basis as they always are."

Rangers take on Hibs at Easter Road on Friday and Steven McLean has been appointed man in the middle.
Collum, meanwhile, hasn't been assigned a fixture for this weekend.

Edited by tonyjaa - 07 Mar 2019 at 7:50am