Brendan Rodgers hits out at bizarre VAR incident
In a change from his usual routine Brendan Rodgers has criticised the use of VR during Celtic’s Scottish Cup win over Buckie Thistle.
Normally any attempt at stirring up controversy from the media is brushed aside, usually suggesting that the match is over and can’t be effected.
Four times today Celtic found the net only to have it over ruled from the VAR studio, some parallel VAR lines were shared with Viaplay Sports but cleared up nothing with no suggestion of what parts of the body were used or 3D simulation to illustrate the decision.
There was one very strange incident in the third minute of the match when Liel Abada was kicked around 8 yards from goal. Quite clearly Abada was kicked, equally clearly he was in an offside position when he moved onto the ball.
? LISTEN: “If it’s offside the penalty doesn’t even matter… as we know” ?
? Celtic boss Brendan Rodgers is questioning the order of the VAR process that took place when they were denied an early penalty – despite agreeing with the decision. pic.twitter.com/t1XGtxBCYj
— Clyde 1 Superscoreboard (@ClydeSSB) January 21, 2024
On VAR Steven McLean held up the restart, he thought that there was a legitimate penalty claim, he didn’t seem to notice that Abada was offside before being kicked.
Match referee Chris Graham was called over, normally that is to rubber stamp a change of decision but after almost a two minute delay the right decision was given.
Rodgers and folk that understand football knew that there was no case for a penalty, if it takes McLean two minutes and VAR technology to notice a basic offside there is an awful lot of work for Crawford Allan to do with his elite team of VAR trained officials.
Celtic went on to win the match 5-0 with goals from Paulo Bernardo, Odin Thiago Holm, Kyogo Furuhashi, Luis Palma and Rocco Vata.