Clyde manager Ian McCall has given his take on the Yang red card after the appeal was dismissed by the SFA. Referee Don Robertson initially showed the yellow card to Yang before John Beaton on VAR instructed his colleague to conduct an on-field review, resulting in his dismissal.
Speaking to BBC Scotland, McCall said there was no surprise that the appeal was rejected because it would have shown the footballing authorities weren’t backing their officials.
“I didn’t think it was a sending off”
“There’s absolutely no surprise that they rejected the appeal, I don’t think. Because I think Celtic and a lot of people working in the media were so vociferous about how bad a mistake it was.
“My take is I didn’t think it was a sending off but I do think it was a 50/50 ball. But I do think Yang wasn’t deliberately endangering an opponent. As I already said he was playing the ball over the defender’s head, but I could see why it was a red.
“My view was it was not a red, a yellow card in the game would have sufficed.
But I didn’t think it was a great shock that it wasn’t overturned just for the very reason that, for me anyway, it was a 50/50 call.”
McCall, who has managed in Scotland for over twenty years, believes that it should have been a yellow but it was a 50/50 ball for the players to go for. The decision by Robertson/Beaton was the first of two shocking calls that ultimately contributed towards Celtic losing at Tynecastle.
Yang will now be suspended for Celtic’s Scottish Cup Quarter Final against Livingston and the home fixture against St Johnstone.
