After his side had lost 1-0 to a controversial Barry Robson penalty at Celtic Park on Sunday, MacPherson claimed that he had been one of two managers whose faces were shown on a screen at one point during the Scottish referees' annual conference, reports The Times.

"What Gus said was not true," McVicar said. "Gus MacPherson was not even mentioned, nor was his face up on any screen. What we do is look at video clips and DVDs and look at the good, bad and ugly part of the game to see what we want to improve upon.

"One of the clips we used was of a tackle in a Scottish Cup game (between Rangers and Hibernian) and how the two managers, Walter Smith and Mixu Paatelainen, had got involved as a result of that.

"We were looking at the repercussions of the tackle. We were not specifically looking at managers and that was the only time we talked about them - and Gus MacPherson wasn't one of them." MacPherson also claimed that referee Eddie Smith had winked at him during the second half.

McVicar admits that the conspiracy theories that have already started after the first weekend of the season are part and parcel of modern-day officiating.

"It goes with the territory, that's what happens and we just have to live with that," he said. "Referees will never beat the television cameras."