Former SPL referee calls out Willie Collum over Celtic penalty call
Steve Conroy is baffled over Willie Collum’s refusal to get John Beaton to review the Connor Goldson handball at Ibrox.
Trailing 2-1, Celtic were pushing for an equaliser when Carl Starfelt took a swipe at goal. Goldson raised both hands, there was contact with the ball and the sting taken out of the shot from the Celtic defender.
Referee Beaton didn’t award a penalty but held up play as he consulted with Collum on VAR duty with the benefit of all the Sky Sports cameras at Ibrox. After a short pause the game continued without a penalty being awarded.
Conroy refereed one Glasgow derby in season 2009/10, after mysteriously disallowing a Celtic goal and refusing to send off Kyle Lafferty for a brutal foul on Andreas Hinkel his career went into free fall.
Picking up on Conroy’s thoughts on a podcast, The Sun reports the former referee saying:
The VAR team didn’t make the right call with the Connor Goldson handball shout – to me, it looked like a handball.
Now that Scottish football actually has VAR, I have no idea why that incident wasn’t put to review. Unless there’s a view of it that we viewers at home didn’t see, I’m not sure why John Beaton wasn’t advised to have a look at the monitor.
It shouldn’t be decided by those in charge of VAR if it’s a penalty or not, that should be left to John so he can make up his own mind. I don’t blame John, he should’ve been given the opportunity to look at it again.
Should Celtic demand an explanation on Ibrox penalty decisions?
Yes, time for accountability and transparency
No, just teething problems, take it on the chin
Since VAR was introduced in October the SFA haven’t explained a single decision other than admitting to a camera malfunction during Celtic’s 2-1 win away to Motherwell in November.