Ludicrous- Sportscene pundit calls out latest refereeing farce against Celtic
Michael Stewart has described the penalty awarded against Celtic today as ludicrous.
David Munro had already turned in a nervous looking first half when he chose to draw more attention to himself five minutes into the second period.
From around one yard away, at the side of the penalty box, the ball bounced up and off Matt O’Riley’s arm with the match still goal-less.
Munro pointed to the penalty spot, the VAR official could have got him out of bother but Ewan Anderson agreed with the decision with David Cancola opening the scoring from the penalty spot.
It was the fourth penalty conceded by Celtic in five SPFL matches with VAR in use, after the match Ange Postecoglou avoided comment on the incident but Stewart didn’t miss out when he appeared on Sportscene.
Watching the show, Football Scotland reported the former Hearts midfielder saying:
Seriously, how the referee gave it in the first place is astonishing and worse is how it can go to VAR and they can say, ‘yeah that’s the right call’.
I think it might actually come off his ribs before it comes off his arm, which would negate it in itself because it comes off another body part but irrespective of all that, his arm is literally tucked in by his side. What is he meant to do?
It’s so ludicrous that I don’t know what else you can say on the situation.
Ange Postecoglou obviously not wanting to talk about it now which is easier to do because they’ve won the game, and it’s a good answer.
I don’t think it’s just lines because I think he does just focus purely on the football but were one of these incidents to affect the result, I’m not sure you can ignore it. And the real concern is that inevitably one week, once of these incidents will cost.
Should Celtic publish the reply from the SFA over the Jota VAR decision?
Fortunately goals from David Turnbull and Sead Haksabanovic ensured Celtic picked up full points but after 14 wins from 15 matches VAR seems to be causing the hoops more problems than most SPFL opponents.