The problem with previous footballers becoming referees is their age and the time in order to become proficient.

Being a footballer doesn’t mean you’ll be a great referee any more than being a footballer makes you a great manager - and I’d argue the link to the latter would be far stronger.

The biggest difficulty with refereeing is the nuances of game management. Most people can have reasonable foul detection, but the very greatest referees have superb player and game management. That takes years to refine.

Footballers retiring at 32-36 don’t have long to gain experience. It can take 10-15 years for an SG1 official to make it.

Of course, we can fast track former footballers, and they do have a head start on many other referees starting out, but they also need to unlearn a career’s mistaken and wrongful understanding and application of law.

I’m all for it, and it will work for some, but this is no silver bullet. The problem isn’t referee decision making - it’s how fans and pundits want the game to be refereed in a way that the Law simply doesn’t apply. It being a former footballer making the same decisions won’t change that.

Jaap Stam 2004

They did. That’s a real outlier though. Getting a man sent off after 18 minutes against arguably the best team in the world away from home will have an impact.

San Marino have lost 13-0, 11-0, 10-0 (twice), 10-1, and 9-0 (four occasions).

Gibraltar have lost 7-0 four time, and 8-1 once. Most of those were in 2016-2018, in their earlier days of competitive matches.

Yesterday’s result was a slightly freak score. It’s all relatively speaking, but any team can have day off (Liverpool 7-0 Man Utd; Brazil 1-7 Germany; Man Utd 8-2 Arsenal). It’s just that a Gibraltar’s bad result in an extra 6-7 goals on top of these.

All 42 senior stadiums in Scotland, plus around 80 or so at Tiers 5-9 in the lower leagues.

Elsewhere: Cardiff; Wembley; Aviva; Leipzig; Craven Cottage; Boleyn Ground; Brunton Park; Camp Nou; Wisla Krakov.

You can add Dynamo Tblisi’s stadium as of tomorrow night.

(I’m a football referee, so all grounds in Scotland covered multiple times as a fan/match official).

Your proposal doesn’t change anything other than create an even more arbitrary point to argue about.