Willie Collum insists VAR was right not to intervene in the Hibs penalty award which infuriated Rangers boss Philippe Clement in this month’s thrilling 3-3 draw in Leith.
The Easter Road flashpoint saw Josh Campbell go down in the box in a challenge with Ianis Hagi with ref John Beaton pointing to the spot. Martin Boyle rifled home the spot kick to make it 2-2. But Clement fumed afterwards insisting he would be keen to see what the Key Match Incident panel would have to say about the incident.
The Ibrox boss demanded an explanation from Beaton after the match and said: “For me, it’s never a penalty. It’s from both sides a collision and nothing more. You can give it two ways so you don’t give a penalty in that situation.”
The KMI supported the on-field decision. And now SFA refs chief Collum has backed Beaton and the VAR team too – but said they would also have backed a decision to play on. Speaking on the SFA’s monthly VAR Review show he said: “There are loads of elements in this decision to consider. A variety of camera angles as well. The referee is well positioned. He’s very decisive on the field. He gives a clear explanation to the VAR.
“This is a very subjective decision. If you look at this you could give reasons why it’s a penalty. The upper body contact coming in. The Hibs player’s ahead at that point. The Rangers player doesn’t touch a ball.
“Then if you look at the ground level, was there contact for the Hibs player onto the Rangers player? Is that caused by the upper body contact? There’s loads of different things to consider here.
“What we would say, it’s subjective. Referee awards a penalty here. There’s nothing to bring the referee to the monitor here to overturn that.
“If the referee decided to play on here, there’s also elements to support that decision. So for us this is very subjective where we would say regardless of the on-field decision we would support it.”
Collum also backed Kevin Clancy over his decision to disallow a Motherwell goal in the 2-2 draw with Rangers for a foul on Jack Butland. However the refs chief says whistler Chris Graham got it wrong when he chose to send off Well’s Dan Casey for violent conduct in a highly controversial incident against Kilmarnock last month.
Motherwell boss Stuart Kettlewell dubbed it the worst decision he’d ever seen at a football match after Casey was red carded for pushing Killie’s Danny Armstrong.
Graham stuck by his decision after reviewing it on the monitor. But Collum said: “We’ve learned a few lessons from this decision.
“When the referee comes to the monitor he’s shown the incident about four times on repeat in slow motion.
“We would much prefer in an incident like this when the referee comes to the monitor he’s able to see it at full speed. Watching this incident at full speed, is there any excessive force, is there any brutality, is the contact negligible?
“These are the criteria we need to look at for violent conduct and ultimately we think a yellow card should have been shown here for a reckless action, aggressive behaviour and nothing more.”
Ref Graham was also deemed to have made a second error in the match when he failed to award Killie a spot kick when Brad Lyons hit the deck after a challenge from Andy Halliday. Instead Motherwell were awarded a free kick.
Collum said: “There should have been a penalty kick for a step on foot. We’ve coached the referees and the VARs to be very focused in the penalty area, focus on the actions particularly the defender, they’re the person that’s going to make the contact, the illegal contact, so focus on that, get a real view.”