The SFA show their hand early over Celtic vs Rangers League Cup final penalty controversy

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The Celtic vs Rangers penalty controversy won’t be going away any time soon as the League Cup final incident continues to grab the headlines.

The debate rages on over whether Celtic defender Liam Scales’ shirt pull on Vaclav Cerny was worthy of a penalty as the Scottish media lose their minds over the incident.

At first, there was a debate being had over whether the VAR panel had actually looked at the decision. That was firmly put to bed yesterday by 67 Hail Hail as we dug out the audio of Premier Sports confirming the Celtic decision was looked at by the video referees.

With the SFA set to release the audio on the Celtic controversy on Friday, the national association have shown their hand early with a big decision on the weekend’s Scottish Premiership fixtures.

SFA axe Celtic vs Rangers VAR officials from Scottish Premiership duty

It seems that the SFA have dropped a massive hint on what they think of the penalty debate after they took action on the VAR officials for this weekend’s Scottish Premiership fixtures.

The Daily Record has shared how the SFA have axed VAR duo Alan Muir and Frank Connor from Scottish Premiership duty this weekend.

The report says, “The pair haven’t been assigned any Scottish Premiership fixtures this weekend while the rest of the Hampden team of officials ARE all in action.

“Beaton is in charge of Hearts vs St Johnstone while assistant David McGeachie is VAR assistant for Aberdeen vs Hibs and fellow assistant Jonathan Bell is running the line for the Friday night fixture when Motherwell host Kilmarnock.”

So it seems that fans don’t really need to wait until Friday for the SFA’s thoughts on the penalty as it looks like their opinion on the matter is crystal clear.

The five most controversial VAR decisions given against Celtic ranked

It wasn’t too long ago 67 Hail Hail wrote a piece on the five worst VAR decisions given against Celtic so what better time to review those to prove that Rangers are not the only club to suffer from poor match officiating.

• Matt O’Riley handball vs Ross County November 2022. The footage below tells the story.

• James Forrest penalty claim vs Hearts October 2022: The first weekend of VAR and Celtic denied a clear penalty for a Michael Smith handball.
• Alexandro Bernabei handball vs Dundee United November 2022: The first-ever penalty to be given against a player who didn’t even know where the ball was. Ridiculous decision.
• Connor Goldson handball vs Rangers January 2023: No words needed. The footage below shows how crazy this penalty denial was.

And the very worst decision of the lot:

• Tomoki Iwata handball vs Hearts March 2024: The second-ever penalty award where a player didn’t see where the ball was but was deemed to have infringed.