The SFA’s VAR panel has officially acknowledged an error in not awarding Celtic a penalty in their match against Motherwell last weekend.
The decision comes after the Key Match Incidents panel reviewed an incident involving Celtic’s Daizen Maeda and Motherwell’s Stephen O’Donnell, concluding that match officials missed a clear foul in the build-up to a disallowed goal.
Match referee David Dickinson had ruled out a goal due to a handball by Maeda but did not award a penalty for an earlier foul by O’Donnell on the Celtic forward.
VAR officials Alan Muir and Gary Hilland chose not to recommend an on-field review, a move the KMI panel believes was incorrect.
After a “lengthy discussion,” a 4:1 majority on the panel concluded that Dickinson should have been sent to the monitor to reassess the decision, potentially leading to a penalty for Celtic.
The SFA statement explained: “After a lengthy discussion on the incident, the majority (4:1) of the panel deemed this should have firstly been identified as a foul by the on-field Referee and an on-field review should have been recommended by the VAR when the penalty was not awarded. As the goal was correctly ruled out for handball, the majority of the panel (4:1) felt the penalty-kick should have been awarded as this offence occurred before the handball.”
This admission reflects the SFA’s efforts to improve transparency in VAR decisions but does not change the outcome of the match, where Celtic felt aggrieved by the oversight.
The panel also clarified that any decision regarding sanctions for the offending player is solely within the on-field referee’s jurisdiction, not VAR’s. This acknowledgement is likely to fuel ongoing discussions around VAR consistency in Scottish football.
It’s all well and good admitting this after the event when NOTHING can or will change. This isn’t as they call it “transparency”!
This is only “smoke and mirrors”! It’s b-s!
The fact is, this was a blatantly biased call at a time when the game scoreline was still in the balance at 1-0. Not only was it a penalty, it was a blatant penalty with the probability of a red card for O’Donnell who stopped a clear goal scoring opportunity.
Saying “oops, we did it again” is nonsense when nothing changes!
What’s really worrying is that someone on the panel still believes it’s not a penalty!
You know what? This doesn’t really surprise me.
When you have a panel made up of the type of clowns we know we’ve faced year after year, the type who STILL claim the two handed save by Goldson wasn’t a penalty, among many other blatantly obvious “honest mistakes” which went against us, the type of bigot we know like Andrew Dallas and his proven bigot father, sadly, there’s ALWAYS going to be that person!
My exact thoughts the five officials should be named especially the one who decided it wasn’t a penalty.