WHO’D be a referee, eh? My sons were at Fir Park for Motherwell’s game against Hibernian on Wednesday night, and among their group of pals was none other than the offspring of Andrew Dallas, match official on the evening. By all accounts, Dallas junior spent most of the night giving his old man pelters.

With friends (and family) like that, who needs enemies, right? But our referees have plenty of those as well.

Whether it’s Rangers playing to the gallery by writing to the SFA over Kevin Clancy’s performance at Pittodrie as they drew with Aberdeen, Celtic manager Ange Postecoglou calling for protection for his players after a few overly meaty challenges at Alloa, or Robbie Neilson’s rant about the ‘long Glasgow stare’, there is rarely a time when officials aren’t in somebody’s crosshairs.

That’s why I try to be sympathetic to their cause whenever possible, as in fairness do many managers, as it is widely acknowledged just how difficult a job they have.

Sometimes though, our men in black don’t help themselves, and it is here where I can find fault in the performance of referee Don Robertson as Celtic visited the Indodrill Stadium last Saturday night.

It is not however in the tackle from Alloa’s Mouhamed Niang on Yosuke Ideguchi, which looks much worse on the slow-motion replay than it did at the time, and should admittedly have been punished more severely in hindsight. The lapse I refer to could have had far more serious consequences than even the significant ankle injury which befell the Celtic midfielder.

It was in his actions immediately following the collision in the middle of the park between Celtic captain Callum McGregor and Alloa’s Adam King that Robertson caused huge concern, and raised questions about the protocol for dealing with head injuries in this country, and how that protocol is enforced.

It was immediately as clear as the rapidly swelling contusion on McGregor’s face to anyone present that this was a potentially serious incident. McGregor crashed to the turf, holding his head, as the crowd winced as one at the force of the impact between the players.

And yet, referee Robertson, after blowing for a foul, was initially reticent to allow the Celtic medical staff onto the field of play to attend to the stricken player. For what reason, you would have to ask him.

It seemed like an eternity before Robertson, following the prompting of some Celtic players, eventually permitted the physio and doctor onto the field to attend to McGregor’s injury.

The official cannot explain the delay away by claiming not to have had a good view of the incident either. Just as contact is about to be made between the cheek of McGregor and the shoulder of King, Robertson swivels as he follows the ball flight and looks directly at the point of impact. Indeed, he immediately blows and awards Celtic a free-kick.

How can it be then that it took so long to allow McGregor, prone on the pitch and clearly clutching his face, to receive medical attention?

“From what I understand he wasn't in great shape right from the start,” said Celtic manager Postecoglou after the game. “That's the disappointing thing.”

Mercifully, it appears that as serious as McGregor’s injury is, he has escaped any longer term damage. That we know of, in any case. Because tragically, there have been innumerable cases of former footballers suffering from brain-related disease later in life at a greater incidence than the general population.

In fact, Scotland has been at the forefront of such research to establish a link between the sport and long-term neurological conditions, as has been highlighted in this column several times in the past.

Dr Willie Stewart is a consultant neurologist at Glasgow University, and his ‘FIELD Study’ into the increased risk of brain disease for footballers produced some harrowing findings that are worth reiterating.

When the medical records of 7,676 men who played professional football in Scotland and were born between 1900 and 1976 were compared against more than 23,000 individuals from the general population, it was found that footballers were five times more likely to suffer from Alzheimer’s disease, approximately four times more likely to get motor neurone disease, and twice as likely to have Parkinson’s disease in later life than the average person.

The SFA moved to ban heading for under-12s as a first response to the study, but they must also impress upon their officials at the top of the game how important it is to follow concussion guidelines to the letter.

Those guidelines, which are published on the SFA’s own website, have the tagline ‘If in doubt, sit them out’. Perhaps at the elite level though it should be ‘If in doubt, maybe – oh I don’t know – consider allowing some medical professionals onto the field of play as swiftly as possible’? Not as catchy, I’ll grant you, but the message is just as important.

This isn’t only a Scottish problem. Football in general is way behind when it comes to assessing the risk of brain injury through participating in the sport compared to other contact sports like rugby, and also in how the sport deals with incidents like the one that befell McGregor.

In the African Cup of Nations on Wednesday night, for example, Liverpool forward Sadio Mane played on despite suffering a suspected concussion in a hefty collision with Cape Verde goalkeeper Vozinha.

That drew criticism from Luke Griggs, deputy chief executive of brain injury association Headway, who said: "On the face of it, this seems to be yet another example of football putting results ahead of player safety.

"This was a sickening collision that clearly left both players in enough distress for a concussion to have surely been considered a possibility at the very least. At that point, the principle of 'if in doubt, sit it out' should have resulted in Mane being substituted without another ball being kicked."

So, it isn’t only in Scotland where concussion and head injuries in general have to be taken more seriously, but given Robertson’s casual reaction to McGregor’s plight, there is much work to do in our own back yard.