Willie Collum gives explosive verdict on 'unacceptable' Rangers-Celtic penalty call as VAR audio released

Rangers were denied a spot kick when referee John Beaton awarded a free-kick on the edge of the penalty area for a shirt pull by Celtic defender Liam Scales on winger Vaclav Cerny in the third minute of extra-time. A VAR check failed to spot that that foul had taken place on the line - therefore inside the penalty area - leaving Rangers incensed as Celtic went on to lift the trophy in a shoot-out after the 3-3 draw at Hampden.

Rangers manager Philippe Clement branded the failure of VAR to intervene as "really weird" and asked reporters to "dig into it" while new Ibrox CEO Patrick Stewart, who only started on Monday, also contacted the SFA on his first day in office to seek an explanation. The VAR team on duty - Alan Muir and assistant Frank Connor - have not been assigned a William Hill Premiership fixture this weekend having been stood down as a result of the oversight.

And former referee Collum, who hung up his whistle last season to take over as the SFA's new head of referees from Crawford Allan, has accepted that a major error was made as he addressed the incident in the SFA's VAR Review show which was aired on Thursday.

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

The VAR audio was also broadcast which saw senior VAR official Muir make an instant assessment that the foul had taken place outside the box. "He's just outside 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 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."

Collum explained where the officials went wrong.

"The holding is the key part of this decision," he said. "It's really important. There's been a lot said about the Rangers player having a foot on the penalty area line. The foot is actually irrelevant in this case. It's about the holding, and the holding only, because that's where the contact is. The holding begins outside the penalty area, and then it continues on the line, and even arguably beyond the line and fully into the penalty area. But regardless, the fact that it is on the line this should be considered as a penalty kick. The referee has awarded a free-kick onfield because he sees the pulling and he's correctly judged the incident in terms of the foul play. But then the VAR team need to go into a check and they need to decide whether this incident is inside or outside, and ultimately, they failed to come to the correct conclusion, which is this should have been a factual overturn. No need for the referee to go to the monitor but a factual overturn for a penalty kick to be awarded."

Collum has vowed that the Scottish refereeing and VAR department will learn from the incident with meetings already having taken place with his top officials.

He added: "People need to take time to make sure is the holding outside or inside, but ultimately when you look at the TV pictures here, this is not a difficult decision for the VAR team. They are not forensic enough in the analysis. They move on far too quickly. I think they are thrown because the majority of the Rangers player's body is outside the penalty area, but that is irrelevant because it's the holding they should be judging, and they should be making sure they get a clear image to show that that continues into the penalty area. We've dissected this incident because people will obviously hear me saying that it is wrong, but that is not enough. We need to now understand why did we get it wrong, and how do we make things better. How do we improve? What is the lessons learned from this? Because people will find it very hard to accept this error.

"So the VAR when he is checking the incident, my opinion is that he is probably focused on the Rangers player and most of his body being outside, he doesn't then analyse the holding enough. The AVAR, who is supporting him, is noting down the yellow card for the Celtic player at the time. He's focusing on the paperwork, and that is a learning point. We should park the paper work. We can catch up on the paperwork. The focus needs to be on the decision. The ball is dead. The AVAR is not watching live play. It's an opportunity for the team of VAR officials to focus on the incident and the incident alone. But the VAR asks the AVAR, 'it's outside, do you agree?'. Even small details like that, that is a closed question, we have said to the VARs moving forward, we've had them in on Monday and Tuesday, the top match officials, to say we need a question here, 'look at this incident, assess it for yourself' and then there's more of an opportunity for the AVAR to assess that from a neutral standpoint rather than be clouded about what the VAR has said."