US Edition 
Uefa president Michel Platini sticks up for Old Firm referee Willie Collum
Michel Platini, the president of Uefa, attended his first Old Firm match on Sunday and afterwards expressed sympathy with Willie Collum, the beleagured match referee.
Collum came under fire from Celtic manager Neil Lennon for not ordering off Lee McCulloch for a second bookable offence and for awarding Rangers a penalty when Kirk Broadfoot dived as Daniel Majstorovic pulled out of a challenge.
At the latter incident, Collum – who could just as easily dismissed Celtic's Anthony Stokes and Georgios Samaras – had his back turned as Broadfoot threw himself. It was a baptism of fire in this fixture for the 30 year-old.
However, Platini, who was responsible for adding assistant referees behind the goals in Europa and Champions League matches, believes that officials currently have an impossible job and more must be done to assist them in improving their decision making.
"This is the story or a referee: he is always under pressure because he is one man," said Platini. "In tennis, there is one umpire but 12 people who have a say around a much smaller playing area.
"In a beautiful world you respect the decisions of a referee, even when he has made a mistake. We have Fair Play and Respect campaigns but it seems we are still a long way off from achieving a good understanding.
"One referee is not enough, not in the modern era where you have 20 cameras. It is unfair: the cameras can see everything but the referee only has one pair of eyes. Every time he makes a mistake, those cameras are there to focus on it.
"It is why for the past 10 years I have asked to change the job of the referee, to help improve the situation and to give the referees better support." Even so, Platini will not countenance the idea of goalline technology, claiming it would reduce the game to "PlayStation football''.
"These people are going to make mistakes and to be a referee I think you have to be a masochist," he said. "The system is bad and I have known this for 40 years.
"It is why we have added two assistants for Champions League games this season. It is a logical step with so many cameras that can pick up incidents: the more eyes there to assist the referee, the better the chance of spotting those incidents.
"Referees can also help themselves. They have the power to earn respect," he said. "When I was a player, if I went face-to-face with a referee and received a yellow card, I would not go near him again. But if the referee did not show me a yellow card, I would see a weakness in him and do it again. That is reality."