Patrick Stewart has got straight down to business in his first day as Rangers CEO by demanding answers from the SFA over the penalty they DIDN’T get at Hampden.
It was an all-time classic at the national stadium as Celtic and Rangers played out a 3-3 thriller before the Hoops edged it on penalties to claim the first trophy of the season. As is expected whenever the Glasgow giants face, there was no shortage of controversial incidents – a prominent one coming in stoppage time when Vaclav Cerny went down on the edge of the penalty box under contact from Liam Scales.
Rangers appealed for it but ref John Beaton played on and VAR Alan Muir opted not to call him across to the monitor. Nothing was given, and Record Sport understands that new CEO Stewart – who started in his new role on Monday morning after the final – has spoken to the SFA to ask for an explanation over the non-award.
Speaking on Sunday night’sHotline Live, ex-grade one whistler Des Roache insisted VARshould have spottedthe foul and pulled it back for a check. And Roache believes Muir broke with protocol by failing to tell ref John Beaton to take a look at the flashpoint for himself on the pitch side monitor. Roache said: “The laws of the game state that, if you are pulling a player outside the penalty area and it continues inside the penalty area it’s a penalty kick.
“Going by the footage we are seeing, Liam Scales clearly has a hold of Cerny whose foot is on the line. The line is part of the penalty box so therefore it should have been a penalty. You’ve got to go by fact. And the factual letter of the law is that’s a penalty kick.
“Going by the footage we are seeing, Liam Scales clearly has a hold of Cerny whose foot is on the line. The line is part of the penalty box so therefore it should have been a penalty. You’ve got to go by fact. And the factual letter of the law is that’s a penalty kick.
“I don’t understand why VAR didn’t pick it up because that’s what VAR is there for. It’s there to pick up obvious errors and they have the benefit of hindsight and being able to slow down the camera. So I was very surprised that it wasn’t given.
“I thought, on the pitch, John had a magnificent game and, like you guys, when I first saw it I didn’t think it was a penalty. But it was only when I saw the stills I thought, ‘You know what? That one wasn’t right!’.
“I don’t think you need to draw any lines. What you need to do is get John across. Certainly, if it was me, I’d have asked the referee to come across and say, ‘Look, I’m not sure about this. You might want to take a look at it’.
“If John didn’t want to take it on a review that’s absolutely fine. No problem at all. But I think it’s your duty as a VAR, when you are looking at it with that technology, and when there’s a seed of doubt in there. And there was certainly a seed of doubt as soon as I saw it.”