Three matches in to expose the double standards of VAR specialist Greg Aitken

On August 4 on VAR duty Greg Aitken watched Robbie McCrorie wipe out Kyogo Furuhashi six yards from goal, reviewed the incident and decided that Don Robertson got it right by not awarding Celtic a penalty.

Two weeks later at Hampden Matthew MacDermid disallowed a ‘goal’ from Cyriel Dessers for a foul in the build up, on VAR duty Aitken decided to intervene, the decision was reviewed pitchside with the goal awarded.

Aitken is from Kilmarnock and used a fun picture cracking jokes with Ally McCoist on his Facebook profile.

The Ayrshire Referee Association is second only to their Lanarkshire brothers in providing the right calibre of match officials for SFA approval.

In the summer of 2022 the SFA created two full time VAR roles, the recruitment policy is unclear but Aitken and Andrew Dallas got the jobs which puts them in charge of most televised matches from the VAR room. It is believed that mobile phones and contact with social media is allowed in the VAR room with contact to media partners.

After three weekends of the season there has been two incidents that have left even the blinkered word of Scottish pundits toiling for an explanation, Aitken has been behind both of them.

At Hampden yesterday the SFA were in touch with BBC Scotland, doubling down to justify the unjustifiable.

Referee Matthew MacDermid has been groomed by Collum through the Lanarkshire Refereeing Association, he looks around and sees the sort of decision making required to climb the ladder and secure the lucrative international appointments.

Aitken is a master of it, he knows his role just grand.

Never before has a referee played at advantage to the team committing a foul to see how the incident plays out.

MacDermid may have been right or wrong with his decision that Cyriel Dessers had committed a foul- he was wholly wrong if he gestured for a free kick but didn’t blow his whistle. There is no evidence of when he did or didn’t blow his whistle.

During the match, sensing the controversy where Aitken and MacDermid had broken the protocals involved in VAR the SFA contacted BBC Scotland to double down on the deliberate mistakes of two top officials in a televised match.

VAR was only used in one of yesterday’s five League Cup ties.

Dallas will be on VAR duty for Kevin Clancy in the Celtic v Hibs match, Celtic fans know what to expect from the SFA officials.

Since July 2012 the Celtic board have limited critcism of all refereeing matters to their ‘surprised and disappointed’ statement template which has allowed Dallas, Aitken, John Beaton and Bobby Madden to rise to the top and influence matches. There has never been any follow up to the trusted deflection statement despite the comments and frustrations of Neil Lennon, Ronny Deila, Brendan Rodgers and Ange Postecoglou.