Celtic have seen the benefits VAR could bring after their last three matches against Motherwell, RB Leipzig and St Johnstone. And now, it seems that VAR is now likely to arrive in Scottish football much sooner than expected and the closer scrutiny that will come with it may well change some games considerably.
In midweek the Hoops benefited from two goals of RB Leipzig being chalked off for offside. The margins on both were very fine and hard for officials to be certain in real time, but the close examination of VAR showed no goal was the correct decision for both instances.
This weekend at St Johnstone there were a couple of very tight offside decisions against Giorgos Giakoumakis and James Forrest which would have benefitted from a closer look by VAR rather than being decided by the linesman in real time. Also, as reported by Football Scotland, former Scottish referee, Charlie Richmond, believes St Johnstone’s equaliser against Celtic on Sunday should have been disallowed because of Andy Considine having a hold of Giakoumakis’ shirt in the build up.
Then on the previous weekend, what seemed an obvious penalty for a Motherwell handball in the box, wasn’t given. That could have helped Celtic get ahead sooner in the game and changed the complexion of the game completely. If VAR was in use it’s hard to see a scenario where the penalty isn’t awarded.
VAR imminent for Celtic in the SPFL
We’re all waiting for the introduction of VAR in Scottish football, and it was originally due to come into play after the World Cup. But now, as reported by the Daily Mail, the SFA are finalising plans to introduce VAR to the Premiership by the end of this month.
The training of officials and trials are now complete, although one can expect some growing pains during the first few months of VAR’s introduction into the Scottish game.
VAR is not going to solve all the refereeing issues we see regularly in Scotland, that’s a much bigger task. But let’s just hope that it will be able to eradicate a lot of the big errors that are made and which end up effecting games.