Former Celtic manager Neil Lennon reckons that the only problem with VAR is the personnel employed, at a considerable extra cost to the clubs, to implement the technology.
And the former Celtic manager reckons he has the ideal solution that would at a stock improve the outcome which has been controversial from the very start and has never seen a standard of competence worthy of the sums paid to the Scottish refereeing brotherhood.
VAR incompetence
Sunday’s game at Tynecastle without VAR would have resulted in just one wrong call in Neil Lennon’s view. He reckoned that the early Celtic penalty awarded by Don Robertson was incorrect. If it was then John Beaton on VAR failed to correct the error and he had numerous opportunities to review the incident on his monitor.
It was the kind of incident that Celtic would be punished for every single time and while accepting it was soft it hard to agree with Lennon that it was not a penalty.
That aside everything else he says, as reported by Daily Record, is spot on.
“My opinion on VAR is the same as it’s always been.
Nothing wrong with the technology
“The technology is right, it’s the implementation that causes the problem. You can bend the rules anyway you want to get the decision.
“We talk about common sense and there’s the laws of the game and they seem to be two different things. I think they got all the big decisions wrong on Sunday, apart from the offside against Lawrence Shankland,” the former Celtic manager said.
“I don’t think Celtic’s was a penalty, I don’t think it was a red card because there’s no real intent, because he’s not going with any real force, he’s trying to flick the ball over Cochrane’s head. I think Don Robertson got that decision right first of all.
“Then the penalty Hearts got was embarrassing. Johnston’s come in the back of Iwata, Iwata’s got his eyes closed and the ball hits him on the arm. You know from the natural reaction of players – you didn’t see anyone claiming at the time. So to come to that conclusion…”
“There’s nothing wrong with VAR, there’s nothing wrong with technology, it’s the decision-making that’s wrong, the individual human decision-making.
“My own view is that they should get ex-players involved to give them a hand with it. Even in England they should have ex-players in Stockley Park for these decisions to give an interpretation of what they see,” Lennon said.
Celtic have appealed the VAR decision to send off Yang for the raised foot. It costs around £1k so that will make a tiny hole in the £67m currently sitting in the Celtic bank account.
Then there’s the Compliance Officer, the SFA’s silent man when Clement was shouting his mouth off at the end of December, whipping up a witch hunt against Willie Collum for his incompetence operating the VAR technology.
Today we will hear if the Compliance Officer is coming after Brendan Rodgers for naming and shaming John Beaton for what he reckoned was incompetence. It’s hard to agree with Rodgers on this one as Beaton was at his competent worst on Sunday manufacturing the outcome to suit himself.
Explain this then…
If the Tomoki Iwata handball was a penalty then it makes that year long run when Beaton’s team didn’t concede a penalty all the more remarkable. It would mean that not one ball struck a Rangers player arm during that time. On Sunday two “top” referees in the Scottish game looked at Iwata’s involvement in the incident and deemed it to be a penalty.
Var is being used as a Rangers supporter’s tool to maximise the advantage for one team and handicap another. It’s rigged, it’s shameful and it should be called out.
If the Compliance Officer at the Scottish FA comes after Brendan Rodgers then Michael Nicholson has a duty to the shareholders and the supporters to defend our corner. It’s long overdue for Celtic to stand up to these people.
The only way we will know what happened is by demanding the audiotape from the VAR conversation.