The return of domestic action saw VAR and refereeing take centre stage in Celtic’s 2-0 win over Hearts.
Celtic kept the pressure on at the top of the Scottish Premiership table after besting Steven Naismith’s side in a stuffy contest that Brendan Rodgers’ side dominated as Hearts parked the bus from the early stages.
However, Celtic ran out eventual 2-0 winners thanks to an Arne Engels penalty and a nice strike from outside the box from Luke McCowan.
But it was the decision of the match officials Andrew Dallas on VAR and the match referee Colin Steven to award Celtic a penalty after a handball that’s created the headlines as Rodgers keeps his five-point lead ahead of Rangers intact.
What ‘clearly’ happened to award Celtic penalty
Celtic got the penalty after Nicholas Kuhn’s cross was handled in the box by Hearts’ James Penrice and the decision has caused much discussion at the weekend.
But for Behind the Whistles‘ Steve Conroy and Des Roache, the decision was correct as the former SFA refs took to their podcast to explain why the match officials were spot on to award the spot kick.
Conroy said, “I agree it was a penalty. Clearly, the ball hit him and people are talking about the distance, I think there was enough distance.
“But I think the clincher, again, we talked about it earlier on, the defender’s arms were up and out, they were away from him.
And if we are right in the way that we are thinking, the ball wasn’t going to hit his body, it was going past him.
“So he was affecting the flight of the ball and possibly interfering with an attacking move. But the bottom line is, I think it was a penalty, it was handball, but his arms were up and away from him.
“So there was no self-defence in that.”
Former referee’s ‘first instinct’ on Celtic Park award
And whilst the penalty decision was bemoaned by Steven Naismith, Des Roache shares what his ‘first instinct’ was when he first saw the handball.
Roache continued, “My first instinct as soon as I seen it, I thought it was a penalty kick.
“His arm didn’t come to his body to protect himself. His arms have went out. So all that’s going to happen there is he’s going to block the trajectory of the ball.
“So it was a penalty.”
Brendan Rodgers disagreed with Naismith‘s assertion that Hearts’ penalty shout was similar to Celtic’s as the Parkhead boss argued that ‘the rules are pretty clear’ about handball as the officials got both decisions correct.
Next up for Celtic is Slovan Bratislava in the Champions League where Rodgers, and the support, will be hoping that a Celtic Park win can be achieved without any further VAR controversy.
