Celtic defied the might of the SFA to beat St Mirren 2-1 to go five points clear at the top of the SPFL Premiership.
In the first half referee Ryan Lee decided to ignore a two handed push on Liam Scales that should have resulted in a penalty.
At that stage Celtic were trailing 1-0 after a silly handball by Scales for a shot that was going wild.
The biggest error of all came in stoppage time when substitute Shum Mveuka raced through to put the ball in the net.
On VAR duty Don Robertson was unable to produce lines to determine if the on loan Chelsea forward was offside.
Ryan, who attended the Hearts hotbed Musselburgh went pitchside and decided that Mveuka was offside.
Over-ruling the assistant referee and the VAR studio.
A decent summary of the shambles that Scottish refereeing has become under Willie Collum.
? OFFSIDE!
Celtic’s new signing Shim Mheuka thinks he’s bagged his first goal for the club, but it’s ruled out after a VAR check ?? pic.twitter.com/6PoRKcDpoC
— Sky Sports Scotland (@ScotlandSky) September 5, 2026
CELTIC AGAINST ALL ODDS
Ryan had given the sort of performance that has become the norm in matches involving Celtic.
The visitors had 60% possession of the ball. Ryan awarded 15 free kicks against the dominant side and just 6.
Almost two thirds possession, but 70% of free kicks awarded against. Similar to Wednesday’s win against Aberdeen.
Despite trailing at the interval Celtic turned the match around to take full points.
Scales glanced in a corner in the 51st minute to level the scores.
In the 68th minute a great break from Camilo Duran resulted in a through ball to Yang Hyun-jun who slotted his shot under the on running St Mirren goalkeeper.
Five matches into the season Celtic are five points ahead of two clubs. Hearts can move into second place tomorrow if they win at home to Dundee.
Next up for Celtic is an away match against St Johnstone on Wednesday. And another tussle with Collum’s appointments on and off the park.
Starting as they mean to go on and you better believe it’s going to get a lot worse
Where is our silent CEO/Board? Should they not be vocal in standing up for the rights of our club in asking for the rules of the game to be applies fairly? Maybe Celtic should use the cash surplus to implement a proper VAR? IMHO we have too many public school celtic ‘fans’ running our club, ‘fans’ who do not know what Celtic means for fans who truly understand the nature of discrimination in this country (or too wealthy to care).
Yes, just like the disappointing transfer window, it’s Groundhog Day.
If the Board continues to look the other way with match officiating standards,
(whilst FIFA and UEFA have already decided these standards are not acceptable),
then why should Celtic supporters view the Board as competent?
After reading the last comment no offence intended but where have you been for the last 30 years. Probably, not born. I am off on holiday thank god in the next couple of weeks. Thought , I might be sitting in the sunset watching the bhoys in the europa league seemingly not. Scotland are playing in qualifiers. Wonderful, the only saving grace is that Mr boring defend Clarke has left the building. Unbelievable.
The board are to blame for this debacle but I think the fans are just as complicit, every season the STs are snapped up and merch bought,this board aren’t stupid they know what they’re doing,win a a Mickey mouse league,be shite and get humiliated in Europe every year but as long as we win one of the poorest leagues in Europe the gullible fans will cough up,this season is just the same as long as wee beat sevco the board are forgiven, remember these guys on the board are shrewd business men supposedly and they can definitely read the mindset of Celtic fans ,ie let’s just treat them like the idiot plebs they are because no matter how much we fuck up in transfers and getting a team ready for Europe, these fucking idiots play along with us,and it happens year in year out.How many times have we failed to reach the CL stages and when was the last time we won a UEFA knockout tie,and still the money piles in from the gullibles and we laugh at sevco,who btw have a better UEFA coefficient than us ,who have been the leading team in Scotland for 20 years.
Yup, never give a sucker as even break, I believe covers it.
The commentator said that the ref was being called to the monitor cos “ they couldn’t put a line on the defender”.
So if they cannot definitively say its off it should be a goal.
So the goal is ruled out.
Earlier, they couldn’t put a line on Yang
Yet again not definitive so the goal should stand as the actual contact with the ball could not be seen.
Goal ruled out.
As soon as I saw the officials at half time saying their comms equipment wasn’t working and attempts to change it for functional equipment failed, I said to my m8, we are gonna encounter some utterly ridiculous decisions now there is no comms cos no comms prob means no VAR.
I am all for VAR particularly in the SPL for obvious reasons, but the system we have is Fisher Price and the people who use it find ways to manipulate it.
If it isn’t definitive and beyond reproach, excuse the language, but get it tae fuck.
I wouldn’t even mind if Celtic paid a million more than everyone else for a better version, or we farmed out VAR to south of the border and paid to hire a better version with better operators with no skin in the game.
Get it sorted or get it tae fuck.
If this had have happened to sevco they would have went in for the jugular as far as these decisions but we have malfunction missing Mike who will do nothing and this con man still taking a massive wage a total disgrace.
More cheating to come over the next week and a half for sure !