BBC Sportsound pundit Michael Stewart has given a furious reaction to the penalty incident that resulted in a Ross County goal at Celtic Park today.
Matt O’Riley was judged to have handled the ball by referee David Munro, despite his arm not being in an unnatural position and the fact he was incredibly close to the ball ricocheting off his arm.
Munro gave the decision without the use of VAR, although the fact that the VAR didn’t intervene to potentially overturn the decision was also absurd.
Ranting on BBC Radio Scotland after the 2-1 victory, Stewart said, to the agreement of the other pundits [17:08]: “Horrific. Horrific. That could be the worst. For the referee to give it first and foremost is an absolute disgrace. It’s a ridiculous decision I can’t believe VAR looked at it and said yeah, that’s fine. We must be playing a different sport here.
“He’s a foot away from the ball. It ricochets up and hits his elbow, which is at his side. It’s ludicrous. Those two incidents at Celtic Park in a short space of time are two of the worst decisions you will ever see.”
Stewart wasn’t the only one either. Steven Thompson, Packie Bonner and Leeane Crichton were all left utterly perplexed by the refereeing call.
It just goes to show that Celtic’s complaints aren’t all from a biased perspective. We’ve seen some horrendous officiating in recent weeks and the implementation of VAR technology has only shown up how bad referees here are.
Thankfully it didn’t cost the Bhoys points today – but it could’ve. That Celtic rallied to eventually win 2-1 is a credit to the team. But these decisions need to be called out. We can’t go on like this.
In other news, Abysmal refereeing but Celtic are unstoppable; 3 things we learned as Bhoys surge 9pts clear.
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