Rangers say League Cup Final VAR controversy has ‘damaged the credibility of Scottish football’ after Collum admits penalty decision was ‘unacceptable’
Scotland’s head of refereeing Willie Collum has acknowledged that Rangers should have been awarded a penalty in their Premier Sports Cup final defeat to Celtic.
And the Ibrox club claim a ‘hugely disappointing’ episode has damaged the credibility of Scottish football.
New Rangers chief executive Patrick Stewart sought an explanation from the SFA over the non-award of a spot kick when defender Liam Scales pulled the shirt of winger Vaclav Cerny, still images showing that the pull continued into the penalty box
The VAR team of Alan Muir, Frank Connor and Andrew Dallas failed to upgrade the award of a free-kick on the edge of the area and all three officials have been omitted from this weekend’s Premiership match-list after Collum admitted they had made a ‘really, really poor’ and ‘unacceptable’ decision during the game Celtic went on to win after a sudden death shoot-out.
Speaking on the SFA’s VAR Review Show on YouTube, Collum said the decision was rushed and should have provoked an immediate factual upturn, with an instruction to referee John Beaton to award a penalty.
‘It’s a really, really poor decision,’ said Collum. ‘It’s an unacceptable decision.
Celtic’s Liam Scales pulls down Rangers’ Vaclav Cerny at the edge of the penalty box
Willie Collum has admitted Rangers should have been awarded a penalty for the incident
‘The VAR team know that. Everybody in refereeing knows that it’s unacceptable.
‘We will do our very, very best through our coaching, through our analysis, to make sure an incident like this never happens again.’
A Rangers spokesperson welcomed the acknowledgment of a significant on-field error, but claimed that the incident had damaged the image of the game.
A statement read: ‘Rangers FC notes the Scottish FA’s admission of an officiating failure following the non-award of a penalty to Rangers in Sunday’s Premier Sports Cup final and welcomes the transparency from the Scottish FA.
‘However, for such a failure to occur during one of Scotland’s showcase matches is not only hugely disappointing for the club and its supporters, but also damaging for the credibility of Scottish football more widely.
‘We acknowledge the Scottish FA’s determination to use this and other decision-making failures as opportunities to drive improvements in officiating standards.
‘As a club, we will continue to engage with the Scottish FA in an attempt to improve officiating standards for the benefit of all clubs in Scotland.’
Rangers manager Philippe Clement had questioned the decision after the final defeat
Seeking to shed some light on a rushed and botched process, Collum played the audio before explaining: ‘There’s a holding incident we need to assess here. The holding’s the key part of this decision, it’s really, really important. There’s been a lot said about the Rangers player has a foot on the penalty area line.
‘The foot is actually irrelevant in this case, it’s about the holding, and the holding only, because that’s where the contact is. The holding begins outside the penalty area, and then it continues on the line, and even arguably beyond the line and fully into the penalty area. But, regardless, the fact it’s on the line, this should be considered as a penalty kick.
‘The VAR team need to go into a check, and they need to decide whether this incident is inside or outside, and ultimately, they fail to come to the correct conclusion, which is this should have been a factual overturn. No need for the referee to go to the monitor, a factual overturn for a penalty kick to be allotted.’
Insisting it was ‘not a difficult decision’ facing the VAR team, Collum criticised the decision-making process and has already held crisis talks with the video assistants at Clydesdale House while vowing to learn from the incident to avoid a repeat.
‘Ultimately, when you look at the TV pictures here, this is not a difficult decision for the VAR team,’ he added. ‘They are not forensic enough in the analysis, they move far too quickly.
‘I think they’re thrown because the majority of the Rangers player’s body is outside the penalty area, but that’s irrelevant, because it’s the holding that they should be judging, and they should be making sure they get a clear image to show them that that continues into the penalty area.
‘We’ve dissected this incident, because people will obviously hear me saying today that it’s wrong, but that’s not enough. We need to now understand why did we get it wrong, and how do we make things better? How do we improve? What’s the lessons learned from this incident? Because people will find it very hard to accept this error, very difficult to accept it.
‘So, the VAR, when he’s checking the incident, again, my understanding, my opinion is that he’s probably focused too much on the Rangers player, most of his body being outside.’
Alan Muir was at the heart of a previous error when he failed to recommend a pitchside review for a penalty to Celtic in a game against Motherwell at Fir Park earlier this season.
Despite awarding the same official the first showpiece final of the season, Collum claims he is striving to deliver transparency and accountability when referees make mistakes.
‘We’ve said to the VARs moving forward, we’ve had them in on Monday, we’ve had them in on Tuesday, the top-match officials, to say, we need a question here, look at this incident, assess it for yourself, and then there’s more of an opportunity for the VAR to assess that from a neutral standpoint, rather than be clouded about what the VAR said.
‘I was very open when I took up this role at the start of the season. There would be accountability in refereeing. I told the media, I told the managers, that we would deal with things internally, there would be accountability, but we’ve been consistent with that throughout the season.
‘I can assure people of that. I did say that if match officials find themselves not involved in future matches, or we need to change the profile of a match for somebody, we won’t come out and publicly say that. A manager doesn’t come out and publicly talk about he’s maybe taking a player out.
‘But we’ve also got a responsibility to protect the wider group of the referees. And we’ve also got a real responsibility to protect the match officials involved in this as well. So what I’m assuring you, as I sit here today, is there’s accountability in refereeing.’
