Celtic vs Rangers cup final penalty decision 'unacceptable', says head referee

The Scottish Football Association’s head of referees has said the decision not to award Rangers a penalty during the League Cup final against Celtic was “unacceptable”.

Willie Collum said the call on Sunday at Hampden during the Old Firm match was “really, really poor”.

Rangers lost a penalty shoot-out against Celtic after the teams had drawn 3-3 over 120 minutes.

But the Ibrox club believed they should have had a chance to take the lead in extra time after a controversial refereeing call.

Celtic defender Liam Scales tugged on Rangers winger Vaclav Cerny’s jersey at the edge of the penalty area in the first half of extra-time.

Match referee John Beaton showed Scales a yellow card and awarded a free kick on the edge of the box, with James Tavernier shooting over the bar.

VAR officials Alan Muir and Frank Connor did not indicate that Beaton had made a mistake and that a penalty should have been awarded.

But pictures showed that the foul appeared to have continued into the penalty area, with Cerny’s foot on the line.

Rangers complained to the governing body, with new Ibrox chief executive Patrick Stewart making the club’s feelings known to Scottish FA counterpart Ian Maxwell.

STV has learned that Collum has told the club that a mistake was made by the VAR team.

Speaking on the VAR Review on Thursday, Collum said: “The holding is the key part of this decision.

“There’s been a lot said of the Rangers player having his foot on the line. The foot is irrelevant in this case.

“The holding begins outside the penalty area and continues on the line and arguably beyond the line into the penalty area.

“Regardless, as it’s on the line this should be considered as a penalty kick.

“The referee has awarded a free kick because he sees the pulling, he has correctly judged the incident based on foul play.

“But the VAR team need to go into a check and decide whether it’s inside or outside. Ultimately, they failed to come to the correct conclusion. It should have been a factual overturn for a penalty.

“When you look at the TV pictures, it is not a difficult decision for the VAR team. They’re not forensic enough in their analysis.

“It is a really, really poor decision. It’s an unacceptable decision.

“We will do our best through coaching and analysis to make sure this kind of decision never happens again.”

A Rangers spokesperson said: “Rangers FC notes the Scottish FA’s admission of an officiating failure following the non-award of a penalty to Rangers in Sunday’s Premier Sports Cup final and welcomes the transparency from the Scottish FA.

“However, for such a failure to occur during one of Scotland’s showcase matches is not only hugely disappointing for the club and its supporters, but also damaging for the credibility of Scottish football more widely.

“We acknowledge the Scottish FA’s determination to use this and other decision-making failures as opportunities to drive improvements in officiating standards.

“As a club, we will continue to engage with the Scottish FA in an attempt to improve officiating standards for the benefit of all clubs in Scotland.”

Speaking at a grassroots football event on Wednesday, Scottish FA chief executive Maxwell wouldn’t give his view on the specific incident but did talk about the communication the referee department has with clubs.

He said: “There’s been dialogue with Rangers.

“There’s dialogue with every club in the country on a Monday morning and as you can imagine, Willie Collum’s phone is fairly busy.

“It’s proper that we do that and there needs to be engagement. We’re fortunate that since Willie came in we’ve got the VAR review show that’s being filmed at the moment, we’ve got the Key Match Incident panel and they’ll announce their view later this week.

“I’m sure the VAR review show will have an interesting spike in viewer figures. That will give everyone an understanding of the review of recent incidents and I’m sure that will be one of them.”