Celtic Chief Executive Michael Nicholson got a big laugh from the audience at today’s AGM with a quip about how many penalties Rangers win.
Nicholson was asked about recent VAR issues in a Celtic match against St Mirren with one shareholder querying, “What should happen if a referee and VAR misses a key decision?”
The Celtic chief replied, “Penalty Rangers.”
The moment was met with significant laughter at the event but Nicholson would go on to provide a more substantial response to the concern.
Celtic set for SFA discussions on refereeing and VAR
Nicholson continued [Scottish Sun]: “It’s an important issue. We need to be mindful of our responsibilities with officials. We ask the SFA for fairness and transparency. We have worked with the SFA to improve refereeing and VAR. There’s a meeting tomorrow to discuss this.”
Meanwhile, chairman Peter Lawwell later said [Scottish Sun]: “You can probably recollect the last time a penalty was given against Rangers was when John Greig handled the ball. Any issue we see in any game, we will take it up.”
Fans, managers and players have undoubtedly been left frustrated with the use of VAR technology since it was introduced to Scottish football.
It’s not only in Scotland it has been an issue for Celtic, either. Recently, Daizen Maeda was shown red against Atletico Madrid for a 50/50 challenge that he came off worse from, after torturous use of replays.
Brendan Rodgers stated on the record he would get rid of the technology as it stands at the moment because of the way officials are using the tools available to them.
Celtic are likely to put across their concerns robustly with feedback from Rodgers certain to be aired. Dialogue with authorities can only be a good thing but history has shown the SFA to be rather defensive about the performances of their referees.
Nobody will be holding out much hope of better standards on that front. Hopefully, over time, the technology can improve and a more common sense approach can be taken to its use.
In other news, Peter Lawwell defends significant increase in Celtic director salaries at AGM.
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