It was text book stuff from Reo Hatate during the first half away to Ross County as he controlled the ball on the tricky surface as Celtic looked to open the scoring. But not in the eyes of Greg Aitken.
Back in the Starting XI the midfielder shaped towards goal when he felt an arm push onto his left shoulder, knocking him off balance as he prepared to shoot.
Chubby faced referee Matthew MacDermid was struggling to keep up with play but saw the incident from an angle. Caught out of possession Eli Campbell raised his left arm to foul his opponent, MacDermid opted to see nothing and allowed play to continue.
At this stage Aitken should step in but the Kilmarnock based VAR official has some form for this sort of non-decision making.
On the opening day of the season he decided not to award Celtic a penalty when Robbie McCrorie wiped out Kyogo Furuhashi on the six yard line. On that occasion the match referee, Don Robertson was unsighted after a quickly played free kick.
At Dingwall, at a crucial stage in the match MacDermid didn’t have that excuse, most fans know what Aitken’s excuse is.
Willie Collum inherited Aitken as a full time VAR official, he called him out on the first edition of the SFA’s VAR Review show but five months later he is still getting a crucial role in top matches.
On Thursday night he chose to overlook Clinton Nsiala standing on Simon Murray’s foot, some might call it a pattern of assistance.
Celtic penalty shout for a foul on Hatate.
Ross County player pulls Hatate back a he’s in on goal and legs get tangled.No penalty awarded. pic.twitter.com/WN2KglUh4j
— Lint (@Zeshankenzo) January 11, 2025
MacDermid and Aitken soon sharpened up their act after the break with Ross County awarded a penalty in the 56th minute, the match referee had no hesitation in awarding a penalty against Alistair Johnston.
Aitken went through the motions of reviewing it, there was a lengthy check for an offside decision that was never coming in order to give the impression of carrying out their jobs.
Compounding it all James Brown decided to carry out a Kung-Fu challenge on Yang Hyun-jun as he prepared to finish off an outstanding move involving pinpoint cross field passes from Arne Engels and Kyogo Furuhashi.
It was a clear penalty, similar to Clint Hill on Leigh Griffiths in February 2017 as Bobby Madden took charge of his first Glasgow Derby.
Again MacDermid chose not to award a penalty, he was eventually called over to the monitor, a total of four and a half minutes were lost before the two officials got round to the right decision.
Arne Engels converted the penalty at the second attempt, we will never know if the 93rd minute penalty would have been awarded had the scoreline been 1-1.
Questioned about VAR issues at the Celtic AGM Michael Nicholson said that a 25 minute show once a month with Willie Collum covering five incidents demonstrated transparency was alive and well in the secretive world of Scottish refereeing.
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Celtic penalty shout v Kilmarnock.
No penalty given after the keeper cleans out Kyogo.— Lint (@Zeshankenzo) August 4, 2024
1 Comment
by Stevie Bhoy
How reluctant are the officials to give Celtic a penalty? Even Ross Co. pen wasnt clear cut. Didnt see much of a foul there at all but there was no hesitation whatsoever. Even the clowns in the media over the Yang penalty were saying “no, not for me”. These clowns are getting a good wage for this