John Hartson never shirked a challenge on the football pitch and takes the same attitude into punditry.
During the World Cup the Welshman was on duty in Qatar for ITV, watching how the best in the business operate with the latest technology available to ensure that the correct decisions are arrived at.
Yesterday Hartson watched the showpiece fixture of Scottish football played with the assistance of VAR for the very first time.
For most Celtic fans the decision making was worst than ever. No longer can the old excuse be made that decisions are made in a split second with a referee having to make big calls at high speed. VAR is there as back up, a tool to ensure the right decision and the right outcome.
Listening to Hartson on Go Radio, the Daily Record reports the Welshman saying:
We said this before the game, we didn’t want to be in this situation (talking about VAR). The problem is it’s clear and obvious. It hit his (Goldson) arm. Natural, your arms are by your side.
Unnatural is when your hands are up in the air. How on earth the penalty is not given I will never, ever know. We’re all thinking in here that it’s a penalty. Where is John Beaton’s positioning?
Ok, you can say he missed it, but Willie Collum on VAR, how many times do you have to see it? Rangers will feel aggrieved they didn’t win the game, but that decision to not give a penalty for handball by Connor Goldson is embarrassing.
Should Michael Nicholson demand publication of conversations between Collum and Beaton?
Yes, we must have clarity and accountability
No, lets give VAR time to get over teething troubles
After 20 SPFL Premiership matches Celtic have had five penalties awarded against them, in the same number of matches no penalties have been awarded against the Ibrox club.
Until Celtic start asking serious questions regarding refs and var operations nothing will change a very soft penalty against Celtic then a clear penalty by goldson not given after check by var i have said before var is good but in Scotland waste of time as we have seen very strange outcomes favour one club.
Celtic very poor yesterday but no damage done Ange got it wrong on team selection yesterday but as he said we are human mistakes happen we move on one game at a time.leauge not over still plenty points to win and lose but we are in good plac.
PS listened to a clip from the rangers end a wee boy shouting aww naw Celtic have scored 2 each then a wee red head girl jumping up to cheer Celtic glum faces all round her very funny.
It is obvious that the ref’s. don’t want to award penalties at Ipox. It is proven statistically! Glass thrown onto the pitch and bottles thrown and virtually a complete home support at the match.
You can see why a ref. might be wary of making the decisions he has to make.
But the SFA should step up and demand a fair allocation of tickets for away fans. Sevco don’t run the game, the SFA are supposed to do that!
Either the SFA are being handled by the Ipox club, or we are all living in an Alice in Wonderland land!
Celtic fans should just boycott every cup.game and give that corrupt sfa.spfl fuck all money honest just go to our home games and let the wee club die aswell because Scottish football is better.dead than watching a rigged game to help they cheats at liebrox get points our football is finished untill the corrupt sfa.spfl are clean out from top to bottom it should have happened in 2012 when ranjurs died but it just shows every fan around the world how corrupt the Scottish game is especially when a club gets liquidated and a newco starts up again it keeps the oldco history only in masonic scotland can this happen and it did and uefa done fuck all about it thats how corrupt football is around the world but Scottish football rips the hole out of it how was the other 3 clubs that got liquidated how were they never saved just like sevco scotland were yous answer that one and the celtic board said fuck all barr sign the 5way agreement to save the old firm name eh get ..p.lawwell out of paradise before he does something else to our.club the fat dirty lowlife bastard lawwell..