Lennon hopes officials stay

26 Oct 2010 - 17:30:35

Neil Lennon hopes Steven Craven is not the first of many officials to walk away from the game amid the current climate of inference and innuendo which also saw Old Firm referee Willie Collum receive threats following Sunday's Glasgow derby at Parkhead.

The news on Tuesday morning that Collum had answered a number of threatening phone-calls at his Lanarkshire home afterwards came the day after assistant referee Craven resigned after being caught up, along with referee Dougie McDonald, in a furore over a decision to deny Celtic a penalty at Dundee United last week.

"I'm sorry to hear that the linesman resigned and we are still waiting to hear the reasons why," he said.

"I don't want to see anybody losing their job. They do it for the love of the game for a start.

"Every season seems to bring an increasing amount of pressure, not just on referees, but on managers and players because of the spotlight they are under.

"I don't want to see them (officials) walking away from the game when they have worked so hard to get in to that position. But all we want is the big decisions to be called right.

"I think we have a decent relationship with the SFA but if you get an incident like last week, very high profile and controversial, we are within our rights to ask questions as to what went wrong and why the decision was changed. That's all.

"I was asked a question about the penalty decision on Sunday and I gave an honest answer.

"I think the majority of people would have agreed with me that it shouldn't' have been a penalty. Maybe (the relationship with the SFA will become frosty) but all we are looking for is clarification."

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Labels: hopes, Lennon, officials

posted by ron @ 6:58 PM