Gordon McQueen told Soccer Saturday that Kevin Blom wasn't good enough to referee an international.
Soccer Saturday expert not impressed with Dutch official
Gordon McQueen said Kevin Blom "simply wasn't good enough" to referee an international match after a series of controversial decisions in Scotland's game with the Czech Republic.
The Scots were leading their European Championship qualifier 2-1 in the dying minutes when the referee awarded the visitors a penalty after Jan Rezek went down under a challenge from Danny Wilson.
McQueen was convinced the Czech player dived to earn the spot kick and after Michal Kadlec smashed home the equaliser from the spot, he was further aggrieved when Christophe Berra was denied a clear penalty that would have given Scotland real hope of making Euro 2012.
And after failing to award the Czechs a clear-cut penalty earlier in the game, McQueen insisted the Dutch official simply wasn't up to the task.
He told
Soccer Saturday: "He's obviously proved he's not up to handling games at this level.
"It's a terrible decision because Rezek dived when he went into the box. There was no contact, the ref purely and simply got conned. Rezek stuck his left foot into the ground.
"You've got to remember they had a blatant penalty earlier on in the game for Charlie Adam on Milan Baros, but I think the only person in the whole of Hampden who was conned was the referee.
"There's no doubt in my mind that [Hubnik's challenge on Berra] was a penalty. For me he made contact with Berra's right foot.
"How can you give one and not give the other? It just doesn't make sense.
"The referee, quite simply, wasn't good enough. He's got three penalty decisions wrong in that game."
Hopes
The result leaves Scotland five points behind the Czech Republic in the race for qualification and McQueen believes their hopes have been left dangling by a thread.
Craig Levein's side face Lithuania, Liechtenstein and runaway group leaders Spain in their final three games, but McQueen believes the Czechs are now well poised to claim the play-off berth in Group I.
He added: "Everybody said before the game that it was a must-win game and I agreed with them. With still a five-point gap I think it's far too much to close.
"But remember, we've still got Spain to play away from home and it's the final game of the group. Spain will have qualified, so we maybe hope they'll play a weakened side or something.
"That's our only hope because we might win our next two games and it's still not enough. We needed to win today, there's no doubt about that.
"It's really disappointing because we had our noses in front twice."
