The Scotsman appears to have jumped the gun with a claim that the SFA have admitted that a penalty should have been awarded against Celtic in the League Cup Final.
Two days on from Callum McGregor lifting the trophy there has been an incredible focus on John Beaton’s decision to award a free kick against Liam Scales and book the Celtic midfielder.
Not content with that the Ibrox messengers are wanting to know why a penalty wasn’t awarded for an incident that no player claimed for at the time.
Decisions aren’t made based on the reaction of players but it does give an indication over the seriousness of the incident.
Social media and Bobby Madden got the campaign underway as angry bears were forced to come to terms with Celtic winning the 119th trophy in their history.
Attention has been firmly on Alan Muir in the VAR office for not intervening, completely overlooking the fact that John Beaton also jumped the gun by awarding a free kick against Scales for his tackle, if the man from the Crown Bar had held off a few seconds the shirt pull would have resulted in a penalty.
On Monday afternoon the Ibrox media messengers were informed that new Ibrox CEO Paddy Stewart had contacted the SFA on the issue, today the former Manchester United man gave an in-house interview with the Scotsman jumping to conclusions from very bland, non-committal comments:
The Scottish Football Association have accepted Rangers were denied a crucial penalty kick in Sunday’s Premier Sports Cup final defeat against Celtic at Hampden.
The Scotsman understands that during a discussion between new Ibrox chief executive Patrick Stewart and Willie Collum, SFA Head of Referee Operations, it was admitted that a mistake was made when VAR officials failed to alert referee John Beaton that Celtic centre-half Liam Scales’ tug on Rangers winger Vaclav Cerny’s jersey occurred on the line, rather than just outside the box. Instead of giving a penalty. Beaton awarded a foul just outside the box from which James Tavernier shot over the bar.
Collum is set to address the incident in the SFA’s own VAR Review Show scheduled to be recorded and aired this week.
It has been a long time since The Scotsman last broke a genuine football exclusive other than whatever is going on at Hearts and Hibs.
Ian Maxwell, CEO of the SFA is expected to make a rare media appearance this week, whatever the topic chosen to discuss with be ignored to push for answers on the non-penalty.
It is unlikely that any questions will be asked about the decision not to give Leon Balogun a second yellow card for his attack on Reo Hatate’s ankle early in the second half.
No evidence beyond the squiggly lines has been offered to justify the decision by Andrew Dallas on VAR duty to disallow a ‘goal’ from Kyogo Furuhashi in the September Glasgow Derby.
It seems that The Scotsman has complied with Clement’s request for reports to dig into the decision, we’ll soon know whether they got the nod or applied wishful thinking to the issue.
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