In true SFA fashion some blurred VAR lines were produced at yesterday’s Kilmarnock v Celtic Viaplay Cup tie to justify the goal scored by Marley Watkins.
Blink and you’ll miss it.
Messages were fed to the Viaplay Sports team to explain the decision with no form of close up given or even a zoom-in on the shaky lines produced in a match featuring two teams in mainly white shorts playing on a reflective surface.
Just a few weeks ago Crawford Allan was explaining to the media messengers how much had been picked up and improved on from last season’s VAR roll out where different interpretations of Goldson’s Law were introduced on Sportscene.
At first glance, instinctively it seemed that Watkins was offside when the ball was played across goal.
His upper body was leaning forward, according to the proper Laws of the Game offside is judged on any part of the body that can be used to score a goal.
In this instance Watkins’ shoulder is closer to the Celtic goal than any defender, he was offside.
Anybody worked out what’s going on here?
The purpose of the VAR still is to show the working of VAR and clear up why the decision was given.
🤷♂️ pic.twitter.com/4Ip32b8Nn5— Lint (@Zeshankenzo) August 21, 2023
Don Robertson was on VAR duty, a decision was taken in less than two minutes, to the surprise of the Kilmarnock striker his goal was allowed to stand.
While old media has conveniently looked the other way social media has been inspecting the shaky blue line shared by Viaplay.
There is no sign on the SFA website of the image used to make the decision, it seems that the desired outcome was achieved as can be seen in the pictures of Alan Muir with Derek McInnes at the final whistle.
As far back as the 2021 Celtic AGM former chairman Ian Bankier claimed that the club had deep concerns about Scottish referees, last year Michael Nicholson asked for patience as VAR was introduced to the Scottish game, he anticipated settling in issues.
Last season at Fir Park the SFA admitted that a camera had been faulty but that a long range camera had correctly called offside when the ball was received by Jota.
No line has ever been produced to justify Liel Abada’s late ‘goal’ being disallowed at Tynecastle last October.
Ten months later there isn’t the slightest sign of transparency from the SFA to explain decisions, fortunately they know that there will be never be serious questions put by Celtic other than when under severe pressure from fans the surprised and disappointed statement template will be updated.
— I’m an inconsistent hypocrite (@PLoyalties) August 20, 2023
