New Scottish FA panel passes judgement on Celtic and Hearts handballs plus missed red card incident

The Key Match Incident Review Panel will meet each week to examine major incidents from the previous weekend's matches before voting on whether the on-field decision and any subsequent VAR interventions were correct.

Made up of five people - three independent members with established Scottish football careers such as coaches, ex-players and members of the media, one SFA representative plus one person representing SPFL clubs - it replaces the Independent Review Panel (IRP) introduced last year to review match incidents which only met every two to three months.

Each panellist casts one vote on each KMI, with the outcome of each review determined by majority decision.

The first KMI Panel met on Thursday to review incidents from fixtures that took place over the weekend of September 14-15, including two controversial handball incidents at Celtic Park.

Hearts were awarded a first-half penalty by referee Colin Steven when Lawrence Shankland's header struck the arm of Celtic defender Liam Scales in the box. The decision was overturned after a VAR intervention, which the panel unanimously agreed was the right outcome.

The report read: "The panel agreed this was a tough call for the referee but supported that VAR intervened and overturned the penalty kick for handball. The distance from the attacking player to the defender is too close and he has no time to react. The panel were not convinced that the ball struck a punishable part of the arm."

Referee Steven was summoned to the VAR monitor again in the second half after failing to award a penalty to Celtic when James Penrice blocked Nicolas Kuhn’s cross with his arm. He again changed his decision after reviewing the footage, awarding a spot-kick which Arne Engels converted to give Celtic a 1-0 lead before substitute Luke McCowan added a late second.

The KPI panel again ruled that the correct decision was reached, although the vote was not unanimous, with one panel member maintaining the penalty award was wrong. The report added: "The panel discussed this decision at length with the majority (4:1) deeming the onfield decision incorrect and believed the Assistant Referee was more of the lead on this one due to positioning. The majoirty (4:1) believed this was a correct VAR intervention to award the penalty, noting that the defender made himself bigger and that his arm is out from the body."

In total, the KPI panel reviewed 32 incidents from the six Premiership matches and found that only one incorrect outcome was reached when referee Matthew MacDermid failed to show a red card to St Mirren's Shaun Rooney when he appeared to kick out at Kilmarnock striker Kyle Vassell, with VAR also deemed to be in the wrong for not calling the official to the monitor.

The report added: "The panel unanimously deemed the on-field decision not to show a straight red card as incorrect, noting that the St Mirren player clearly kicks the Kilmarnock player twice with force. All of the panel stated that VAR's decision not to intervene was incorrect, deeming the incident as violent conduct and a clear and obvious error."