Celtic give silent support to the dodgy VAR decision from Andrew Dallas

Four full working days after the controversial handling of the Glasgow Derby Celtic have given Willie Collum and his officials their complete backing over Sunday’s events.

The home side won the Derby comfortably enough but beyond the usual dubious decision making of John Beaton, especially his highly selective application of the Advantage Rule there was one decision that almost all Celtic fans want a fuller explanation of.

In the 11th minute Kyogo Furuhashi appeared to open the scoring from a quick break, play was paused with the ‘goal’ disallowed by VAR officials Andrew Dallas and Graeme Stewart, like Beaton and Collum members of the influential Lanarkshire Refereeing Association.

A few minutes after the ‘goal’ was disallowed Sky Sports shared a long range picture with suspicious lines imposed to justify the decision with no follow up provided other than using the distant camera. With Sky Sports covering the match other cameras are available, no Hawkeye footage has been provided to back up the decision made by Dallas.

Celtic 365 emailed Celtic’s Communication Manager Iain Jamieson about the decision and the lack of evidence, 48 hours later there has been no reply. Rarely has someone had such an inappropriate job title, communicating outside an ‘elite’ but dwindling group of legacy media outlets is something that Jamieson hasn’t gone near in over 20 years on the Celtic payroll.

If the image above was used it calls into question the whole VAR system, the equipment and those operating it.

How they decide the moment that Callum McGregor strikes the ball and transfer that into the exact positions of Kuhn and Souttar is up for debate, there will be a human element to it which introduces a margin for error.

What isn’t beyond question is the two lines used in the image given to Sky Sports. The blue line from Souttar’s shoulder towards the pitch leans slightly towards the defender, the red line from Kuhn leans slightly away from him.

At half time Sky Sports barely covered the offside ‘goal’ there was no forensic analysis and no mention after the match.

Brendan Rodgers wasn’t convinced about the decision as he hinted at during some after-match interviews but with Celtic winning 3-0 that early decision hasn’t had anything like the scrutiny given to a disallowed goal at Ibrox last September following a foul on Gus Lagerbielke or a penalty claim against Alastair Johnston when Abdallah Sima was in an offside position.

Two weeks ago the SFA contacted BBC Scotland during the match coverage to explain a decision made by Matthew MacDermid who u-turned on a foul awarded to St Johnstone to allow a goal by Cyriel Dessers to stand.

Before the season started Willie Collum went on a round of media interviews to explain how things would be different this season with VAR specialist Jon Moss brought in to introduce transparency.

A month into the season Collum has fallen silent, to the surprise of no-one there has been virtually no mainstream coverage of the incident and the inconclusive ‘evidence’ offered up by the SFA.

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