Camera was on Angewatch! New excuse offered for VAR decision against Jota
A report in The Sun claims that the VAR camera that should have been covering Kyogo Furuhashi’s pass to Jopta last night was instead trained on the DUG OUT areas.
It is a fairly far fetched explanation for the decision to illustrate the VAR offside call based on footage from a camera around 40 yards from the incident.
Celtic have apparently asked the SFA to clarify the decision that was made by VAR official David Dickinson with the 24 hours since the goal was disallowed throwing up conflicting stories.
Tonight The Sun reports:
And now SunSport van reveal that the image wasn’t shown because camera in the other half of the pitch – thought to be operated by broadcasters QTV – WASN’T focusing on the play at that time.
Instead, it was believed to be trained at the dugout area to do close-ups of the managers. It’s thought the SFA have written to the broadcaster in question to make sure there is no repeat.
It’s also understood that the VAR officials for the game are 100 per cent certain Jota WAS offside – with the lines calibrated via the technology.
The Portuguese winger latched onto a superb lobbed through ball from Kyogo, controlling it brilliantly before beautifully chipping the ball over Liam Kelly.
However, the assistant referee had his flag up for offside and the effort was immediately chalked-off. VAR pored over the replay footage and stood by the on-field decision, confirming the no goal call.
Should Celtic publish the reply from the SFA over the Jota VAR decision?
It seems that Celtic were kept in the dark about this excuse/reason with The Sun reporting earlier that Celtic had requested clarification on the decision.
When VAR was introduced the message was that six cameras would be able to provide the relevant angles to allow decisions to be made, televised matches would be able to provide additional footage.
Last night’s match was on Motherwell TV with the report in The Sun suggesting that the VAR cameras were being used to provide entertaining coverage of the managers rather than allow VAR decisions to be made remotely.