The SFA Incident Review Panel’s ‘lengthy discussion’ over three Celtic flashpoints vs Motherwell

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Away from Celtic’s League Cup win over Aberdeen for a minute, Scottish Premiership news returns as the SFA Incident Review Panel convened.

The panel looks back on the big refereeing and VAR calls made in previous fixtures in the Scottish Premiership and decides whether or not the match officials came to the correct conclusion or not using video technology and on-field decision-making.

Against Motherwell last weekend, Celtic were involved in three big decisions the match referee and VAR had to deal with and they all created big talking points after the match.

Daizen Maeda had a Celtic goal ruled out for handball and whilst that decision was universally agreed with, discussions were had over whether or not the Hoops should have been awarded a penalty against Motherwell.

Well, the SFA’s Incident Review Panel had a look at both of those decisions as well as gave their verdict on whether or not the Motherwell red card issued for the challenge on Celtic striker, Adam Idah, was correct or not.

SFA admits referee and VAR mistake in Motherwell vs Celtic game

The SFA published their findings on the three Fir Park flashpoints and admitted that the match officials got one big Celtic decision wrong in the 3-0 win.

• Daizen Maeda’s handball goal: “The panel deemed this to be a correct intervention for a handball which led directly to a goal. The panel agreed this is a difficult incident for the Referee to identify, however also agreed that the Assistant Referee should have identified
  this offence on-field.”
• Potential penalty kick for Stephen O’Donnell’s challenge on Maeda: “After a lengthy discussion on the incident, the majority (4:1) of the panel deemed this should have firstly been identified as a foul by the on-field Referee and an on-field review should have been recommended by the VAR when the penalty was not awarded. As the goal was correctly ruled out for the handball, the majority of the panel (4:1) felt the penalty kick should have been awarded as this offence occurred before the handball. One panel member felt the decision not to award the penalty kick was correct and that no intervention was required. The panel also noted that, in line with VAR protocol, VAR could not advise on any sanction for the offending player during a potential OFR, which must be decided by the On-field referee.”
• Liam Gordon’s red card: “The panel unanimously agreed with this VAR intervention and the decision to upgrade from a caution to a red card was correct.”

The VAR calls that have affected Celtic this season

As well as being affected by wrong VAR calls this season, it is only fair to also point out those that the match officials get correct.

In Celtic’s win over Hearts, VAR correctly overturned a penalty awarded against Liam Scales for a handball.

However, the use of VAR was questioned in Celtic’s win against St Johnstone after the video referee incorrectly ruled out Daizen Maeda’s goal for an apparent foul by Auston Trusty.

VAR was also criticised for ruling out Kyogo Furuhashi’s Celtic goal against Rangers in the 3-0 win at Parkhead in September.

The controversial technology seems to be creating more talking points than it solves but it is clear that VAR his here to stay and the Celtic fans will need to be prepared for more frustration as the SFA continues to try and improve its implementation in Scottish football.