The SFA’s VAR panel has officially acknowledged an error in not awarding Celtic a penalty in their match against Motherwell last weekend.
The decision comes after the Key Match Incidents panel reviewed an incident involving Celtic’s Daizen Maeda and Motherwell’s Stephen O’Donnell, concluding that match officials missed a clear foul in the build-up to a disallowed goal.
Match referee David Dickinson had ruled out a goal due to a handball by Maeda but did not award a penalty for an earlier foul by O’Donnell on the Celtic forward.
VAR officials Alan Muir and Gary Hilland chose not to recommend an on-field review, a move the KMI panel believes was incorrect.
After a “lengthy discussion,” a 4:1 majority on the panel concluded that Dickinson should have been sent to the monitor to reassess the decision, potentially leading to a penalty for Celtic.
The SFA statement explained: “After a lengthy discussion on the incident, the majority (4:1) of the panel deemed this should have firstly been identified as a foul by the on-field Referee and an on-field review should have been recommended by the VAR when the penalty was not awarded. As the goal was correctly ruled out for handball, the majority of the panel (4:1) felt the penalty-kick should have been awarded as this offence occurred before the handball.”
This admission reflects the SFA’s efforts to improve transparency in VAR decisions but does not change the outcome of the match, where Celtic felt aggrieved by the oversight.
The panel also clarified that any decision regarding sanctions for the offending player is solely within the on-field referee’s jurisdiction, not VAR’s. This acknowledgement is likely to fuel ongoing discussions around VAR consistency in Scottish football.
