The Key Match Incident panel have ruled that Reo Hatate should have received a red card in Celtic’s victory against Kilmarnock last weekend.
With his team closing in on a 2-0 win to take them back to the top of the Premiership at Rugby Park, the midfielder misjudged a challenge on Killie‘s Liam Donnnelly, but was only shown a yellow card by on-field referee Nick Walsh. VAR was called upon to determine whether the offence was worthy of a sending off, but following a lengthy delay, official Dom Robertson opted to stand by the original call and not recommend a red card.
Hoops legend and Record Sport columnist Chris Sutton was on punditry duty at Rugby Park and admitted Hatate had got away with one, while Kris Boyd launched a furious attack on the officials after the full-time whistle. And in their latest weekly report taking a look at all the major incidents in Scottish Football, three of the five-man SFA panel were of the opinion that VAR should have intervened to send the Japanese star off.
Their report read: “The panel discussed this decision at length with the majority (3:2) deeming the onfield decision incorrect. The majority (3:2) believed that VAR should have intervened and recommended an OFR for a red card to be awarded as they believed that the challenge endangered the safety of the opponent. Two members of the panel highlighted that they didn’t think the potential foul was clear and obvious enough for VAR to get involved and a caution sufficed.”
The incident also split former top referees Dermot Gallagher and Bobby Madden. On his Ref Watch segment on Sky Sports, Gallagher agreed that a yellow card was a suffice punishment for Hatate, which was in stark contrast to ex Premiership whistler Madden who believed that VAR had got the decision totally wrong.
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