Now that the international break is over the domestic football restarts with Celtic facing Aberdeen this weekend.
Brendan Rodgers has already highlighted the challenge Celtic faces against The Dons but the chat this morning surrounds VAR and how it was applied in Celtic’s 2-0 win over Hearts last month.
Two big moments in the game required VAR intervention and here, Celtic fans can see how the match officials came to their decision as well as hearing what Head of Referees, Willie Collum thinks of them.
Willie Collum backs overturning of Liam Scales’ Celtic handball
The first decision Collum looked at was the Liam Scales handball that was initially awarded as a penalty and here, Celtic fans can hear what the match referee Colin Steven and VAR operator Andrew Dallas discussed overturn the original decision.
And to back up his team, Collum explained how what the match officials did was ‘really important’ to come to the correct decision.
Collum told The VAR Review, “So this clip’s really good at looking at handball criteria. I think, firstly, it’s a really difficult decision.
“The view in particular from the main camera, it probably looks like a penalty kick but when you then start to analyze it and the VAR looks at different angles, they quickly identify that the ball actually hits the defender above the t-shirt line.
“And that’s really, really important because above the t-shirt line is not a punishable handball. People when looking at this clip look at proximity. If you’d moved the ball 30cm down the arm, it would have been a penalty even if it’s very close because the arm is too outstretched.
“Proximity would be more considered when the arm is not as high as it is here for us. His arm is too much in an unnatural position to be challenging for the ball.”
Willie Collum explains why the award of Celtic’s penalty vs Hearts was correct
The match officials also awarded Celtic a penalty against which Arne Engels converted but was that decision also correct? Collum seems to think so.
Collum continues, “The cross is coming in and the Hearts defender has his arm raised unnaturally and blocks the cross.
“We’ve been able to see a couple of clips like that his season. If you look at the opening day of the season we discussed at Hearts/Rangers.
“We believe the Rangers defender’s arm was tucked into the body but on this occasion with the Hearts defender the arm is out from the body and even recently we were able to see again at Ross County a Celtic defender in a similar body shape and we would like that to be punished.
“Both occasions are correctly punished by a penalty kick after an on-field review. [The distance that the crosser is away from the defender] becomes irrelevant when the arm is so high because it’s so high it’s so unnatural.”
This new approach by Collum and the SFA explaining big VAR and referee calls is a breath of fresh air. For too long the new refereeing technology and decisions being made by the refs have caused confusion and division.
Fans want to see football played without the officials’ intervention, but if they do need to get involved, they want to make the correct calls.
With transparency also being offered when the match officials get calls wrong, Collum seems to be at least allowing fans to understand how mistakes can still be made even with the use of video technology.
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