Hugh Dallas reveals who will be Scotland’s VAR officials

Hugh Dallas has revealed that VAR officials will come from the current crop of referees plus some who have recently retired. 

Hopes that a new era was opening up in Scottish football with the introduction of new technology look to be dashed with John Beaton, Bobby Madden, Willie Collum and Nick Walsh more involved that ever. 

Madden has refereed six of Celtic’s 33 SPFL Premiership matches so far this season, with the East Kilbride based official one of only four trained VAR officials his involvement could be stepped up by being on the whistle one week and watching on a monitor the next. 

Speaking to The Sun, Dallas said: 

Right now there are only four trained with VAR — Nick, Willie Collum, John Beaton and Bobby Madden. 

But as more are, what will happen is the top officials will do a game in the middle on a Saturday and be a VAR on the Sunday. 

They’ll be busy guys at the start — but that’s what happens in the likes of England, Spain, Italy. Referees coming up for retirement age could become specialised VARs so their expertise doesn’t get lost. 

There is currently a pool of VAR trained officials in England and elsewhere across Europe but it seems that the SFA and SPFL want to keep matters internal. 

John Hartson recently called for English officials to be used but it seems that everything will remain in-house as Scottish football steps into a new era.