Exclusive: Keith Hackett blasts VAR over late Celtic incident at Ross County…
VAR officials must come to decisions quicker after an incident that happened as Celtic cruised to a 4-1 win at Ross County, Keith Hackett has said.
The former PGMOL chief and ex-FIFA official exclusively told Football Insider that decisions cannot take so long to be made if they want fans to “buy-in” to the process.
The Bhoys were eventually given the penalty, which Hackett admits was the right call to be made by the officials.
However, he has suggested that Celtic should have not have had to wait as long as they did to be awarded the spot-kick.
Celtic made to wait for too long for penalty decision by VAR
Having led 1-0 at half-time through Kyogo Furuhashi, Brendan Rodgers then saw his side pegged back from the penalty spot on the hour-mark.
Furuhashi though headed in an Arne Engels cross from close range to put Celtic back in front with ten minutes of normal time remaining.
The visitors were then eventually given the chance to extend their lead deep into stoppage time through a penalty of their own.
As the ball came into the Ross County penalty, Yang Hyun-Jun found himself challenging for the ball with the hosts’ right-back, James Brown.
Both would end up going to ground, and although it was not exactly clear if either took the ball or the other, a penalty was awarded to Celtic but only after VAR took four minutes to check the incident.
Hackett now feels that while the right decision was reached, it should not have taken anywhere near as long to get to that point.
Speaking to Football Insider about the decision, the ex-referee:
“This is a clear foul and I can firstly understand why it was not given by the referee immediately because he did not have a clear view of the foul.
“Fortunately VAR is in operation and there is pressure on the match officials to deliver the correct decision.
“It was evident to me that this was a clear foul, a careless challenge that should on review have been given immediately in the first viewing on the monitor.
“A four minute delay in reaching the decision puts in doubt the outcome. The VAR process must deliver decisions in a quicker time to get fans to ‘buy in’.”
Engels would score the penalty after a re-take, having seen his initial attempt saved by Jordan Amissah only for the Ross County goalkeeper to have been off his line as the spot kick was taken.
Celtic
Arne Engels needed two attempts to get on the scoresheet from the penalty spot (Credit: Imago)
Luke McCowan then added a late fourth to add further gloss to the scoreline for Celtic at Dingwall.
That win means the Bhoys are now 18 points clear of Rangers at the top of the Scottish Premiership table, having played a game more.
In other news, Celtic are stepping up their efforts to sign a replacement for Daizen Maeda.
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