Celtic fans will hope the football can do the talking across their remaining fixtures this campaign rather than decisions made with the help of VAR.
In wider footballing circles, refereeing decisions have dominated the headlines this term, none more so than Hyunjun Yang and Tomoki Iwata’s involvement in two dubious offences away to Heart of Midlothian at Tynecastle last month during a 2-0 defeat.
On a day when Celtic could’ve gone top of the Scottish Premiership with a victory, Yang was dismissed for a high boot on Alex Cochrane after Adam Idah failed to convert a penalty of our own.
After deliberation, his challenge was upgraded from yellow to straight red following an intervention from VAR.
Before the interval, Iwata was penalised for a handball offence in the area despite looking in the opposite direction, which wasn’t called on the field by Don Roberston and was only given once the referee was called to the monitor for a second glance. Hearts opened the scoring from the resulting kick.
As we all remember, Brendan Rodgers was charged by the Scottish Football Association for citing ‘incompetence’ in the officiating on display, and he eventually received a one-match ban for his remark with another suspended, leading him to take in our 3-0 triumph away to Livingston from the stands.
Celtic informed of independent review into VAR usage
Per BBC Sport, an SFA independent review panel consisting of former players, manager and coaches guided by refereeing experts has ruled that 26 decisions made with the help of VAR interventions have been deemed incorrect, with ten of the rulings now in the public domain.
From a Celtic perspective, the panel concluded that Iwata’s handball offence was the wrong call, with an explanation cited via the outlet reading: “Hearts 2-0 Celtic (3/3/24): On-field decision correct, no penalty to Hearts. Handball should not have been awarded for spot-kick that led to opening goal.”
Yang’s dismissal was viewed as the correct outcome; meanwhile, the review also clarified that Celtic shouldn’t have been awarded a penalty for a challenge on the South Korean winger earlier in proceedings.
There is no point in dredging up the past too much; however, inconsistency in refereeing and the usage of VAR continue to rear their head in Scottish football, creating talking points for weeks on end.
Right now, it is unclear what the solution is to amend deficiencies in the system. Either way, fans of all clubs would rather talk about football than debate the legitimacy of rulings constantly.