'Damaging' - Rangers respond to Scottish FA admission over failure to award penalty against Celtic

Willie Collum, the Scottish Football Assocation head of referees, has publicly accepted that an "unacceptable" error was made when VAR failed to spot that a foul by Celtic defender Liam Scales on Rangers winger Vaclav Cerny had taken place inside the box after referee John Beaton awarded a free-kick on the edge of the area.

The shirt-pulling incident took place in the third minute of the extra-time period while the match was tied at 3-3 with Celtic going on to lift the trophy in a penalty shootout after an enthralling encounter at Hampden Park.

Collum, who hung up his whistle last season to take over as the SFA's new head of refereeing from Crawford Allan, admitted that a major error was made as he addressed the incident in the SFA's VAR Review show on Thursday.

"We acknowledge that it's a really, really poor decision," he said. "It's an unacceptable decision. The VAR team know that. Everybody in refereeing knows that. It's unacceptable. We will do out very, very best throughout coaching and analysis to make sure an incident like this never happens again. But it's a mistake. It's a bad mistake."

Ibrox chiefs responded to the admission by welcoming the transparency from Collum but expressing concern that such a major error went against them in a showpiece final.

A club spokesperson said: “Rangers FC notes the Scottish FA’s admission of an officiating failure following the non-award of a penalty to Rangers in Sunday’s Premier Sports Cup final and welcomes the transparency from the Scottish FA.

“However, for such a failure to occur during one of Scotland’s showcase matches is not only hugely disappointing for the club and its supporters, but also damaging for the credibility of Scottish football more widely.

“We acknowledge the Scottish FA’s determination to use this and other decision-making failures as opportunities to drive improvements in officiating standards. As a club, we will continue to engage with the Scottish FA in an attempt to improve officiating standards for the benefit of all clubs in Scotland.”

The VAR audio was also broadcast with senior VAR Alan Muir heard to make an instant assessment that the foul had taken place outside the box. "He's just outisde the penalty area," Muir states. "There's not much more in it than that. You can see he's just outside. It's really close. It's more outside. Agree?" Assistant VAR Frank Connor then replies: "100 per cent." Referee Beaton than asks: "Are we all good to go in the VAR centre?". Muir replies: "Yeah, we're good to go, no ongoing checks."

Neither Muir nor Connor have been allocated games this weekend and Collum explained where the officials went wrong.

“I have to be very honest and say people need to take time to make sure, is the holding inside, outside? But ultimately, when you look at the TV pictures, this is not a difficult decision for the VAR team. They are not forensic enough in the analysis. They move far too quickly.

“I think they’re thrown because the majority of the Rangers player’s body is outside the penalty area, but that’s irrelevant because it’s the holding they should be judging and they should be making sure they get a clear image to show them that that continues into the penalty area.

“We need to now understand why did we get it wrong and how do we make things better? What’s the lessons learned from this incident? Because people will find it very hard to accept this error, very difficult to accept it.”