SFA whitewash David Turnbull’s penalty claim as the follow follow Ibrox instructions
Soccer Football - Scottish Premiership - Celtic v Rangers - Celtic Park, Glasgow, Scotland, Britain - December 30, 2023 Rangers manager Philippe Clement remonstrates with the referee Nick Walsh after the match Action Images via Reuters/Craig Brough
The SFA have whitewashed over Celtic’s clear penalty claim in the December Glasgow Derby when David Turnbull was floored by James Tavernier.
Realising the importance of the decision with the match into stoppage time Nick Walsh paused allowing John Souttar to take the ball out of defence.
Assistant referee Callum Spence then raised his flag for an imaginary offside call which allowed Walsh to pause the game and take a breather.
There was no offside anywhere in the move, strangely enough Spence wasn’t so quick with his flag in the first half when Abdallah Sima was offside moving onto a John Lundstram pass that ended with Alistair Johnston handling the ball.
Look very closely as the linesman doesn’t flag for offside until well after Turnbull is fouled. Not before.
Yet that will be the excuse why it DIDNT go to VAR.
Should have went to VAR at least.The Celtic penalty shout v Rangers… eventually. pic.twitter.com/8a9pzSYLbo
— Lint (@Zeshankenzo) December 30, 2023
This afternoon The Sun reported:
The VAR Independent Review Panel have met to look at key match incidents during this period of the season.
And while it’s been deemed 97.6% of decision INCLUDING VAR interventions have been correct there have been SIXTEEN errors found.
That’s the verdict of the panel who say 16 incidents ended up with the INCORRECT outcome.
After the first round of fixtures three mistakes were admitted, now they have admitted to a further 13 mistakes during the second round of fixtures/
It seems that the SFA simply issue a press release with some headlines picked out without any background or context given.
Certain incidents are apparently reviewed including those where a ‘silent VAR’ check take place, these tend to be very obvious decisions where the officials go through the motions of pretending that they are reviewing every incident.
There was no review of any sort for the Turnbull penalty claim., the wrong decision from assistant Spence was accepted with no check made over Tavernier’s foul inside the penalty box.
While the Ibrox side called on their media messengers to launch a campaign to discredit Willie Collum, the benefits of that were obvious when the Lanarkshire referee bottled out of several big decisions due to Ayr United in their recent cup tie at Ibrox.
In trademark fashion Michael Nicholson and Celtic said absolutely nothing about the Turnbull penalty incident. Had a penalty been awarded and converted Celtic would be top goals better off than their city rivals at the top of the Premiership table rather than only being ahead on goals scored.