Ian Maxwell finally ‘explains’ Jota decision against Motherwell

Ian Maxwell has given a convoluted explanation, without any further evidence, to justify the decision to disallow a ‘goal’ scored by Jota away to Motherwell on November 9.

The match was covered by Motherwell TV with the former Benfica man finishing brilliantly early in the second half from a Reo Hatate pass.

After the ball hit the net the assistant referee raised his flag with attention switching to David Dickinson in the VAR studio. Fairly quickly the ‘goal’ was disallowed leaving Celtic 1-0 in front and Motherwell very much in the game.

Around 10 minutes later Motherwell TV broadcast a long distance image of the offside decision that only clouded the issue, the camera on the 18-yard line closest to the action wasn’t used, instead one around 60 yards away provided the evidence for Dickinson’s decision.

Discussing that incident SFA chief Maxwell told The Herald:

That was an interesting one because nobody is actually saying Jota was offside or the decision was wrong. The angle looks strange but that doesn’t really matter because fundamentally the decision was right and that is what it is meant to do.

There was an issue with the camera angle, it wasn’t wide enough to capture the ball and the individual, so we had to use the camera at the other end of the pitch.

Thankfully, the Hawkeye system saw this coming and that’s why both cameras are calibrated to deal with offsides the length of the pitch, in case you get a technology failure or a human error. It just looked a bit strange, but the outcome was right, we got the right decision.

Maxwell could instantly clear up the issue by sharing the Hawkeye image used to make the decision.

Two days after the match the SFA issued a statement about the camera issue but since the person that made the statement doesn’t know the offside rule it only added to the confusion.