The verdicts of the SFA’s Key Match Incident panel don’t matter all that much in the grand scheme of things. It’s just the view of a handful of folk who’ve had a run through the rules, after all.
Their majority view expressed midweek, though, that VAR got it wrong in leading to the award of a last-gasp penalty for Celtic at Motherwell on the second-last day of the season just increases the pressure on refs’ chief Willie Collum and his team.
Particularly when, the week before, they also felt whistler Steven McLean, rewarded for his efforts with yesterday’s Scottish Cup final, blundered when failing to give Hearts a penalty at Fir Park for a clear foul on Alexandros Kyziridis.
Had those decisions been made properly, Hearts would have won the Premiership. Both were taken with the benefit of video replays. And the magnitude of this cannot be lost amid all the rest of the noise and gnashing of teeth.
Willie Collum’s VAR review will address dubious decisions that cost Hearts the title
This isn’t about conspiracy theories around Celtic. It’s not about officials blowing the whistle or not in the middle of a pitch invasion. It’s about league titles being decided by calls from referees that the wide majority of folk just can’t figure out.
And that’s what has to be the central focus of Collum’s next VAR Review, which surely must be broadcast later this week. He apparently told Hearts boss Derek McInnes that McLean was wrong, so some insight on why he was in charge at Hampden might be nice.
The show can’t just be an admission of more errors, through. It needs to contain some kind of roadmap for where the game goes next and why a chaotic campaign for VAR cannot pan out this way again.
Otherwise, the questions over his future will only intensify. Time to get the popcorn in.
