Celtic chief takes cheeky dig at Rangers during AGM

The Celtic AGM can often be a predictable event. The club’s board are asked questions on the day. As you would expect from people who are usually fans as well as investors, the subject matter of many of them was to be expected. The Green Brigade, player recruitment and VAR are all regular topics raised.

VAR is a more recent topic since it was introduced in Scottish football in October 2022. Although before that time there have been related questions about the club’s view on many different refereeing issues.

The introduction of VAR may have changed the specific questions, but the underlying points remain the same. Of course, these are the types of issues you would not expect direct answers to.

A couple of the club’s chiefs did appear to have a bit of fun with the subject matter though, bringing up the Rangers. And unsurprisingly, it went down well with the supporters.

Celtic chief takes cheeky dig at Rangers during AGM

As reported by The Scottish Sun, when asked what should happen if a referee and VAR misses a key decision, Michael Nicholson responded:

"“Penalty Rangers”"

Peter Lawwell also joined in on the fun. When asked about Scottish refereeing standards, he said:

"“You can probably recollect the last time a penalty was given against Rangers was when John Greig handled the ball.”"

While there is a funny side to it, perhaps the underlying reality is less of a laughing matter. VAR should be a serious matter and provide greater support and consistency to refereeing decisions. That’s not proving to be the case yet in Scotland, which is unfortunate.

It remains to be seen if things end up taking a positive turn in the future or not. The problem is not necessarily with the technology but with how it has been implemented in the Premiership so far, with many eyebrow-raising decisions made and missed. It is hard to believe that it has only been a year since VAR was introduced.