‘Unacceptable decision’ to deny Rangers penalty – Willie Collum

Scottish Football Association’s head of referees Willie Collum says Rangers were denied a penalty by a “poor decision” in Sunday’s Premier League Sports Cup final defeat to Celtic.

With an enthralling encounter tied at 3-3 in extra time, referee John Beaton blew for a foul just outside the box when Celtic defender Liam Scales fouled Gers winger Vaclav Cerny.

However, replays showed the infringement was inside the area and after the free-kick came to nothing, Celtic went on to win 5-4 on penalties.

Rangers boss Philippe Clement described the absence of intervention by VAR Alan Muir and assistant VAR Frank Connor as “really weird”.

In December’s VAR Review monthly show, former referee Collum said: “The holding is 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 that it’s on the line, this should be considered as a penalty kick.

“The referee’s awarded a free-kick on field because he sees the pulling. He’s correctly judged the incident in terms of the foul play.

“But then the VAR team need to go into a check and decide whether this incident is inside or outside. Ultimately they fail to come to the correct conclusion, which is this should have been a factual overturn for a penalty kick to be awarded.”

Asked to explain the mistake, Collum replied: “I have to be very honest and say people need to take time to make sure, is the holding inside, outside?

“But ultimately, when you look at the TV pictures, this is not a difficult decision for the VAR team.

“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 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 need to now understand why did we get it wrong and how do we make things better? What’s the lessons learned from this incident? Because people will find it very hard to accept this error, very difficult to accept it.”

Neither Muir nor his assistant Connor have been allocated games this weekend.

When asked how things could be made better, Collum said: “By firstly acknowledging that it’s a really, really poor decision. It’s an unacceptable decision.

“The VAR team know that. Everybody in refereeing knows it. 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.

“But it’s a mistake. It’s a bad mistake.

“I did say (at the start of the season) 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.”