Stewart Regan, the chief executive of the Scottish Football Association, has defended referee Craig Thomson for his performance during Malaga's controversial exit from the Champions League quarter-finals in Dortmund.
The Spanish club conceded twice in stoppage time on Tuesday to lose the tie on aggregate.
Both of those goals appeared to be offside and Malaga have made an official complaint to UEFA over Thomson's failure to disallow them. Indeed, the club were so disillusioned with their exit that president, Abdullah Bin Nasser Al Thani, later accused European football's governing body of being "corrupt and based on racism".
Regan was more relaxed with his comments, although they were also contentious since he laid the blame for any mistakes at the feet of Thomson's assistants, Derek Rose and Alasdair Ross.
"Craig Thomson has had a fantastic season and that was why he was selected to referee a Champions League match at the highest level. I thought his handling of the game was very, very good," said Regan, who hoped the controversy would not affect Thomson's selection for the World Cup in Rio.
"Unfortunately a number of decisions for the people working alongside him perhaps let him down. But these things happen. It doesn't get away from the fact that Craig Thomson is a first-class referee and that's why he has risen through the game in the way he has."
Thomson was not the first Scottish official to incur the wrath of a European club, with Willie Collum was criticised by officials at Lazio following an erratic display in their Europa League defeat by Fenerbahce. However, such was the ferocity of Al Thani's comments, UEFA are to examine if there are grounds to take disciplinary action against the Malaga president.
"Yes, we were targeted from the beginning of the season by corrupt UEFA and based on racism," he posted on Twitter. That follows similar sentiments in comments made in December, when Malaga accused UEFA of unfair and unjust treatment after they were given a one-season ban from European competition – to be imposed if the club qualify for the Champions League or Europa League during any of the next four seasons – due to outstanding debts.
"It will now be analysed by our disciplinary inspectors," said UEFA general secretary Gianni Infantino. "When you lose a match in the 93rd minute, maybe you say things that you don't really think and you really don't want to say."
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article