Following on from the travesty at Tynecastle yesterday the brilliant Lint Twitter account has created a compilation video of handball incidents in Scottish football.
John Beaton and Connor Goldson feature heavily, often in the same incidents. The inconsistencies are strangely consistent, especially when involving members from the Lanarkshire Refereeing Association.
Since VAR was introduced in October 2022 there has been two opportunities to deliver the desired outcomes with Celtic’s first experience, away to Hearts a classic example.
Nick Walsh was twice summoned to the monitor by Steven McLean before awarding penalties against Celtic, when Michael Smith raised his arm to block a cross from James Forrest with McLean enjoying a tea break and log in to his favourite message board.
That game acted as a warning to Celtic fans about the potential damage of VAR, in the first few weeks Dundee United and Ross County were awarded ridiculous penalties at Celtic Park.
A wee refresher on the ‘Scottish handball rule’ for anyone interested.
Pen
No pen
Pen
No pen
Pen
Pen
No pen
Pen
No pen
Pen
No pen
No pen
No pen— Lint (@Zeshankenzo) March 4, 2024
Beaton and Willie Collum, both from the Lanarkshire Refereeing Association, combined at Ibrox last January as Goldson used both hands to block a shot from Carl Starfelt.
Aware of the consequences of awarding Celtic a penalty at Ibrox the quickest of VAR checks was carried out with play quickly continuing.
Among the video there are some incredible ‘inconsistencies’ with Crawford Allan and Ian Maxwell virtually on mute Beaton and his colleagues know that almost anything goes with their places on the gravy train assured.
Elite exponent of the ‘Scottish handball rule’ , John Beaton, showing us how it should be done on the park.
(Commentary by Ange Postecoglou) https://t.co/EWim0vGfqk pic.twitter.com/iExDKX1tQk
— Lint (@Zeshankenzo) March 4, 2024
It should be left to the ref in the split second.
Where there is a tool like VAR, it will always be open to interpretation, if u put bias into the equation then it skews the interpretation.
One other point, anyone else noticed the amount of time VAR spends analysing after we score as opposed to Sevco?
Great point Bhoy4life – Though I believe that they took a long time at Liebrox on Saturday to give a Penalty That never was (totally inconclusive)…
But there again it was for Sevco so that said time had to be taken and taken it very much was and get it of course they bloody well did of course !
We should be asking for and independent review of our corrupt officials. Actually the most corrupt league in the world
(comment purely to try and get the whole article to appear)
(didn’t work, sort this out please Joe!)
Editor: It is quirky, it is being checked by the Tech Team.