A cop out, lazy, hiding- Kenny Clark under attack as he justifies VAR mysteries

Michael Stewart wasn’t going to be taken in by the bland excuses offered by Kenny Clark to explain away the inconsistencies of VAR.

There is only one Laws of the Game but it seems that the SFA have given each referee licence to interpret the Laws any way that they like.

When Michael Smith or Connor Goldson use their hands in the penalty box against Celtic the referee and his VAR colleague come up with an interpretation to deny a penalty, when the ball strikes Alexandro Bernabei or Matt O’Riley on the hand pointing to the penalty spot is inevitable.

As well as his After-Dinner speaking Clark is a member of the SFA Referee Committee where defence seems to be the objective rather than any attempt to explain and justify decisions that leaves players, supporters and pundits in the dark about incidents and outcomes that they have witnessed.

Clark made a very unconvincing appearance on BBC Sportsound yesterday with Rory Loy and Stewart unimpressed by the bland non-committal answers served up by the former referee.

Listening in The Celtic Way picked up on Stewart hitting back at the man from the SFA:

He said: “I’ve got to say I think that’s a lazy argument and an easy one to hide behind at times.”

Stewart later labelled Clark’s contentions over subjectivity as “a cop-out” while, when the former referee put it to the panel that issues with the interpretation of the laws were not just a problem in Scotland, host Macintyre responded with statistics showing that penalties awarded in England after VAR’s introduction decreased while in Scotland they have almost doubled.

To that, Clark replied “I don’t know about all the stats” before going on to say: “Apart from anything else, the whole idea of VAR being introduced was because we kept being told referees were missing things… now that VAR is intervening, they’re not happy with that either so I’m finding it difficult to understand the logic.”

Stewart came back in to clarify his own misgivings, saying: “Fundamentally what I think is the problem, particularly going back to the handball law, is that yes it’s about individuals and their interpretation of it but my problem is that I think the referees are interpreting it in the complete wrong fashion.”

Clark retorted: “I suspect the fans of the clubs which were awarded those penalties fully agreed with the decision that the penalties should’ve been awarded and when those were not given in favour of their team they disagreed with the decision. That is the nature of the beast.”

Yesterday’s Celtic match against Kilmarnock passed off without any controversy as Nick Walsh took charge of Ange Postecoglou’s side for the fourth time in 21 SPFL matches.

Next week at Hampden Willie Collum will referee the League Cup semi-final between the same two clubs, 12 days after being the VAR for the Glasgow derby.