Dallas drew the lines- Collum reveals why Kyogo’s Derby goal was ruled offside

Willie Collum made an appearance on Super Scoreboard tonight with the first caller questioning if the decision was automated or whether there is input from the VAR officials- Dallas and Graeme Stewart from Lanarkshire.

While deflecting round the houses with references to Hawkeye and other instruments Collum admitted that the two VAR officials decide on which part of the body is used and then manually instruct if the line from the player to the ground should go back or forward.

Collum told SSB:

The VAR (Dallas) and the A-VAR (Stewart) work through a process with drawing the lines, they would draw the lines in the correct positions at the body part that can play the ball. That’s where we judge it so if somebody’s arm is sticking out you don’t draw it at their fingertips because that is not a body part that you can play the ball with.

So the lines are correctly drawn(!!!!!!!!!) so when they are inputted, the lines are drawn for the attacker and the defender because it was so tight that it required lines on both the attacker and the defender. Sometimes you see that as start to draw a line you can quickly see that somebody is three yards onside or three yards offside and we don’t want to waste time because we’re on time pressure.

But the decision in the Old Firm game as you know was very very tight so it required the correct lines on the attacker and on the defender. The VAR and AVAR agree on that, they imput it, they work with the video operator from Hawkeye, they actually help to input the lines. The VAR will say move the lines left, move the line right to put it in the right position.

The video operator then asks the VAR and AVAR again ‘are you content where we are putting the body positions, I have to say that to be very clear and honest we were very content with where the body positions were going.

That is then imputted to the system and the system then says whether offside or onside. And nine times out of 10 you can tell because the lines are there and you can see the gap between them.

Clearly Collum is deflecting, the issue isn’t identifying the body parts it is that the lines used aren’t parallel, one lines comes towards Souttar with other further away from Kuhn.

The image above alongside Collum’s comments confirm that human judgement is used which throws the usefulness of VAR out the window. That incident could have been judged either way which explains the need for an automated system.

Since the match no evidence has been put forward by the SFA to justify the decision with Collum admitting tonight that he was in what he called the VAR hub for the match alongside recently appointed VAR specialist Jon Moss.

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, the human element makes mistakes inevitable. A human error is a human error whether it is on the pitch or from a VAR room.

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 earlier 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.

Dallas and Greg Aitken are the two full-time VAR officials employed by the SFA.