Willie Miller defends criticism of referee on Aberdeen website

Published on Tuesday 3 November 2009 21:50

ABERDEEN director of football Willie Miller stands by the club's fierce criticism of referee Steven Nicholls, claiming they had to speak out for the sake of their fans and reputation.

Miller defended an article on the club's official website, which accused Nicholls of "cheating" supporters after he sent off Aberdeen pair Maurice Ross and Chris Maguire during their late 2-0 Clydesdale bank Premier League defeat by Hibernian on Saturday.

The unattributed article, titled 'Is common sense too much to hope for?', suggested that Nicholls, who also issued a total of eight yellow cards, was "hell bent" on sending someone off.

Miller yesterday argued that Scottish football needed its authorities to co-operate with the coaches who were striving to improve the entertainment value.

"It's a club point of view," said Miller. "We have got to take a stance, particularly for our fans, and assure them we want to see the game in Scotland and at Aberdeen played in a certain way. We are certainly not a physical team."

Miller added: "We're concerned about the game in general. It's taking a lot of stick about the standard.

"We're encouraging the fans to travel, we had nearly 2,000 fans at Easter Road, and when you're getting players sent off then it spoils the entertainment.

"We're trying to get the profile of the game up and convince fans that we're trying to play football. A lot of our young managers deserve credit for the way they are trying to play the game. The game in Scotland is not a dirty one.

"I don't want to see it being tarnished by people who think it's physical, because Saturday's game wasn't physical. I don't think any of the challenges on Saturday were malicious."

Miller claimed the club were sparking a debate necessary to encourage the Scottish Football Association to give more leeway to referees.

"The feeling after the game was that the referee seemed to be booking players very early in the game, and not using a little bit of common sense," the former Scotland captain said.

"That's what we're asking for, maybe having a word in a player's ear and giving them a warning before the booking.

"The referee on Saturday booked five in the first half. We got two players sent off and it could quite easily have been the other way. Innocuous fouls in the second half resulted in red cards."

Former Aberdeen captain and manager Miller added: "The SFA are quite keen to encourage dialogue but we didn't get dialogue from the referee. Some of my players said they were asking questions but weren't getting answers from the referee.

"I don't like to hark back to the old days, but I'm going to anyway – you had referees with a bit of character and they were given that leeway and used to regularly talk to the players.

"I think you get a bit of respect between players and referees if you encourage that. Maybe we are just being too authoritative in the direction to referees."

SFA head of referee development Hugh Dallas refused to respond to the comments or discuss the performance of Nicholls, whose display in St Mirren's draw with St Johnstone in September prompted Buddies manager Gus MacPherson to complain about the appointment of "novice" referees. But Dallas said: "The only thing I would like to say is that, if Aberdeen have got any issues regarding refereeing then what they should do is contact the refereeing department. We have had no contact whatsoever."

Nicholls will this weekend take charge of the Third Division game between Stranraer against Berwick at Stair Park.