This year’s VAR has truly been the scourge of Celtic fans, hasn’t it?
The technology for officiating was meant to simplify officiating and reduce the amount of sincere errors that SFA referees frequently tend to make.
All VAR has done, meanwhile, is fuel further debate and misunderstanding among supporters who are fed up with how the video referee is punishing teams differently every time.
Celtic has experienced more than its share of VAR errors. Brendan Rodgers became so enraged at the comments the Celtic manager made about John Beaton that he is currently being charged by the national association.
And it appears that Simon Donnelly is really irritated by another decision made by the video referee.
Commenting on Saturday’s 3-1 victory over St Johnstone, the former Celtic great expressed his frustration with the decision to deny Rodgers’ team a penalty.
Donnelly Simon criticizes VAR
The former Celtic striker was very upset when the Hoops were not given a penalty when Daizen Maeda’s effort went goalbound and deflected off the arm of a St Johnstone defender.
“My argument is so that Maeda rattles one off the boy’s arm at the weekend from point blank range and he can’t do anything about it,” Donnelly remarked [Superscoreboard].
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“However, it’s more of a penalty than the Tomoki one at Tynecastle, but it gets chalked off if it strikes your arm as the attacker and goes in.
“I only say that it stopped the ball straight out of the net; I’m not claiming that the one at Celtic Park was a penalty.
However, they will chalk it off if Maeda kicked the ball onto a teammate’s arm and it went in. Thus, it’s really annoying.
I applaud Donnelly’s candor in this matter. Even while he said he didn’t think the St. Johnstone handball should have resulted in a penalty, contrasting that ruling with the absurd one we received at Tynecastle only serves to emphasize how unevenly the rules are being enforced.
And the main concern is that. Few Celtics supporters will concur that a penalty ought to have been given on Saturday.
But if you asked Celtic supporters to contrast that handball with Tomoki Iwata’s, they would unanimously agree that a penalty ought to have been given.
The SFA has their hands full, and it seems like Craig Beattie, their new player liaison officer, will be putting in a lot of overtime between now and the end of the season.
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