‘They erred’
Details of Willie Collum chat with new Rangers CEO laid bare
The Scottish Football Association have accepted Rangers were denied a crucial penalty kick in Sunday’s Premier Sports Cup final defeat against Celtic at Hampden.
The Scotsman understands that during a discussion between new Ibrox chief executive Patrick Stewart and Willie Collum, SFA Head of Referee Operations, it was admitted that a mistake was made when VAR officials failed to alert referee John Beaton that Celtic centre-half Liam Scales’ tug on Rangers winger Vaclav Cerny’s jersey occurred on the line, rather than just outside the box. Instead of giving a penalty. Beaton awarded a foul just outside the box from which James Tavernier shot over the bar.
Collum is set to address the incident in the SFA’s own VAR Review Show scheduled to be recorded and aired this week
It is the latest VAR error set to be flagged by the
Key Match Incident panel. This weekly report from a five-person committee looking back at selected incidents in the previous weekend’s fixtures will be published on Friday.
Stewart, who has given his first interview since officially starting at the Ibrox club on Monday, has spoken to SFA chief executive Ian Maxwell as well as Collum with reference to the incident, which took place three minutes into extra time with the score locked at 3-3. Rangers later lost a penalty shootout 5-4.
He later confirmed that he had felt compelled to be in touch with the SFA about refereeing already. “As people will know, I have spoken with the SFA for an explanation about the non-awarding of a penalty in extra-time,” he said. “I’ll wait to hear what the SFA have to say about that.”
It’s understood the SFA believe they have already offered all the explanation possible: the officials erred. Neither VAR referee Alan Muir nor his assistant Frank O’Connor have been allocated games this weekend, although Beaton will be in charge of Hearts v St Johnstone on Sunday.
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Not good enough. Not nearly enough. This was not a subjective call that they can hide from. Anyone with eyes could see it’s a clear penalty and therefore Muir and Francis Connor , both with previous against Rangers and both known Celtic fans, must go and go now!