Players know they can’t escape any more- Ange makes huge call to drag Scottish referees out of the dark ages

Ange Postecoglou has called on the Scottish authorities to finally install VAR and use it in SPFL matches. 

Next month VAR will be kitted out at Celtic Park and Ibrox for UEFA matches then packed up and stored away as soon as domestic games are played. 

Scotland is the highest ranked country in Europe not to make use of technology that has been a part of the EPL since 2018. 

It seems that the Scottish authorities are reluctant to bring the game into the modern age with international television viewers expecting wrong decisions to be corrected. Except for viewers in Scotland. 

Covering the fall-out and implications from a bruising Scottish Cup tie at Alloa the Celtic boss told The Sun: 

Well I don’t think it’s a wider issue, because most countries have VAR now. And those kind of things don’t escape punishment any more. 

That’s the right way to go about it. At the same time we want to sell this game and keep increasing the attention the game here in Scotland gets. 

We want to showcase it. We’ve signed players from the other side of the world, Hearts have signed a couple of Aussies. 

The game here is getting a global reach now — and I don’t think people want to tune in and see people getting hurt.  They want to tune in and see exciting football, so it falls on EVERYONE to protect the image of the game. 

If you have VAR, those sorts of incidents are dealt with pretty quickly now. And you see fewer of them because players know they can’t escape that any more. 

Here we obviously don’t have VAR, but it’s not just referees, because they can sometimes miss things. There are linesmen, fourth officials, who are also part of the game, and their role is to protect that environment so we all see what we want to see — and that is football being played. 

There has been various hints that VAR is under discussion or about to be voted on but there seems a complete lack of urgency on the subject with clubs content with the status quo. 

Last summer VAR was in use at Hampden at four matches played in the European Championships then pulled out.

It is stating the obvious but only six sets of equipment are required to ensure that every Premiership match benefits from VAR.

Tonight at Tynecastle John Beaton will referee Celtic’s visit with the Sky Sports cameras taking the game worldwide.