It took less than four minutes of Celtic’s new season for controversy to rear its head.
Sure, we’ll play in more high pressure games than the pre-season friendly against OGC Nice in Lyon. We’ll suffer the hardship of more high profile decisions too between now and May.
But few decisions made by officiating teams, including their VAR helpers, will be quite as bad as the one witnessed in the early stages of the match in France.
Odsonnne Edouard had just prodded his side into the lead in his homeland. The Frenchman had gathered the ball following a ricochet at the edge of the box, before rounding keeper Walter Benitez and slotting into the empty net.
It was an excellent finish from the former PSG youngster, and the perfect start to the season. Or so we thought.
Three of four minutes later the referee, after consulting with VAR, disallowed the goal as Edouard was adjudged to have been offside.
Replays showed Eddy had perhaps strayed just off, but that the ball had ricocheted off one of the Nice players, rather than Ryan Christie.
Don’t just take my word for it. Have a look at the clip posted by match broadcasters Premier Sports on Twitter.
Celtic fans have their say
A scandalous decision that will go under the radar because, quite simply, the outcome of the match isn’t really important.
But that didn’t stop some Celtic fans from taking to Twitter to vent their frustrations. Many with their tongue firmly in their cheek.
https://twitter.com/Kieran_Celtic/status/1283799823351717888
https://twitter.com/celticrumours/status/1283799946580365318
Hopefully it’s just a case of us getting all the bad decisions out the way before the real action begins.
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