Donald McVicar, the Scottish Football Association's head of referee development, has denied allegations by Gus MacPherson that the St Mirren manager was singledout at the SFA's summer conference at St Andrews.

After his side lost to a controversial Barry Robson penalty and had Will Haining sent off at Celtic Park on Sunday, MacPherson claimed he had been one of two managers whose faces were shown on a screen at one point during the Scottish referees' annual conference.

He said: "I don't know the context of it, but I think it is a dangerous thing to do, to put individual managers on screens. It's worrying. I was one of them."

However, McVicar denied MacPherson, who revealed yesterday that the club will appeal Haining's red card, had been mentioned verbally or shown on video. "What Gus said was not true," said McVicar. "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 Hibs 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's allegations came after his side had lost a 61st-minute penalty, scored by Robson, and also had Haining sent off. The St Mirren defender was adjudged to have fouled Jan Vennegoor of Hesselink inside the box, but the award was harsh and Celtic went on to win the game 1-0. MacPherson also claimed referee Eddie Smith had winked at him during the match.

MacPherson was critical of Smith in February when the official awarded a contentious free kick to Celtic, from which Shunsuke Nakamura scored to hand Celtic a crucial 1-0 victory. McVicar admitted that the conspiracy theories have now become part-and- parcel of Scottish football.

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

MacPherson confirmed yesterday that St Mirren will seek justice for Haining by appealing against the red card shown to the defender, but he will have to rely on the help of referee Smith.

Should Smith refuse to accept he made a mistake - as some television angles indicate - then the appeal will be automatically dismissed. MacPherson claimed that although he could understand why Smith had pointed to the spot, he believes the official called it wrong.

"We are appealing on behalf of Will Haining because he feels it was an injustice and he is down about the decision," said MacPherson. "I've watched the incident from various angles and I can see how Eddie Smith made the decision from the view that he had.

"But one view shows that Will Haining didn't foul Vennegoor of Hesselink. The Celtic player has a handful of Haining's shirt and he actually loses his balance. So Eddie Smith has to look at it and decide if he got it wrong."