Former Tottenham Hotspur defender, Stephen Kelly, has described the penalty awarded to Hearts on Sunday against Celtic as ‘ridiculous’ and admits that he cannot understand how anyone could come to the conclusion that that was a foul inside the box and therefore a penalty kick.
Yet theRangers supporting John Beaton managed to find an offence by examining his VAR screen and called referee over to the VAR screen to look at the incident only he had spotted. Sometimes players dive to con referees into awarding penalty kicks.
On other occasions there are contentious decisions to be made around handball (unless it involves Goldson at theRangers obviously).
However in this instance it is incredible that anyone – unless they had their own bitter agenda against Celtic, or badly wanted the result to go Hearts way for their own selfish reasons – could deem the ball hitting Tomoki Iwata on the back of his arm while his eyes were shut as an infringement inside the box.
Celtic of course have been here with John Beaton before.
Stephen Kelly, speaking on Football Daily, just couldn’t believe that a penalty was awarded to Hearts for this incident.
The penalty is ridiculous
“I’m not sure if you’ve seen the penalty. The penalty is just ridiculous. I actually don’t know how they’ve given it. I’m looking at it going, ‘No one in their right mind would give that as a penalty.’
“The balls just dropped and hit him in the arm. And there are three players in a really tight area. The balls coming down, but there’s no movement towards it. It’s just literally hit his arm which is against his body. I can’t understand for the life of me how it is given. I don’t understand it.
“And the ref goes and gives it and then they go to lose the game. But the sending-off is one that a high foot is dangerous play in the letter of the law that could have been a sending-off.
“The penalty is ridiculous,” Kelly concluded.
Celtic on course for showdown with Scottish FA
Celtic have confirmed that they will appeal the red card shown to Yang for a high foot but can do nothing about Beaton’s penalty disgrace.
Meanwhile the Scottish FA may well choose to go after Brendan Rodgers for his post-match comments about Beaton where he described him as incompetent. Let’s hope that they do as this will give Celtic the platform to bring this disgrace to a head.
