Willie Collum 'in the frame' to referee Rangers vs Celtic

The Scottish FA whistler will be considered to take charge of the match on April 6/7.

The Glasgow rivals first meet in April before a final league clash after the split.

And referee chief Crawford Allan has confirmed Collum - just like his referee colleagues - could be the man in the middle for any of the powderkeg fixtures. 

"Willie will be in the frame with every other referee for consideration for games, whether they be in the league, in the cup or whatever," said Allan.

"We’ll make that decision nearer the time.”

It comes after Collum had come under fire for his VAR decision in the last meeting between Celtic and Rangers.

The experienced whistler did not call for a VAR review of a possible handball against Alistair Johnston in the Celtic box.

READ MORE: Dessers predicts 'beautiful things' after Rangers 'difficult moments'

Around 15 minutes after the incident, Sky Sports highlighted Abdallah Sima was in an offside position in the attacking phase of play rendering the handball incident invalid.

It's understood the broadcaster requested images with the relevant lines drawn from the SFA.

But Allan also admitted the VAR images only caused further backlash rather than bringing transparency over the flashpoint.

“We were trying to be as transparent and open as possible to assist the understanding of people,” said the 56-year-old. “But, for the noise that it created, it’s like, ‘Well, why would we do that again?’.

“We’ll stick to what we did at the time and then we will report the facts. I think that’s a lesson learned.

“Initially, yes, we thought it did provide clarity. But clearly, hindsight has shown that it didn’t. We did it with the best of intentions. We were trying to assist. But at the end of the day, all it’s done is backfire.

“From now on we’ll just say to the broadcaster, ‘If you want to look at it and show there was an offside then that’s up to you,’. We’ll tell you the facts as to what we did at the time."