Willie Collum on League Cup Final penalty controversy: 'It's a really, really poor decision. It's an unacceptable decision. The VAR team know that. Everybody in refereeing knows that it's unacceptable...'
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Scotland's Head of Refereeing Willie Collum has acknowledged that Rangers should have been awarded a penalty in their Premier Sports Cup final defeat to Celtic. New Ibrox Chief Executive Patrick Stewart sought an explanation from the SFA over the non-award of a spot-kick when defender Liam Scales pulled the shirt of winger Vaclav Cerny.
![[Willie Collum has admitted Rangers should have been awarded a penalty for the incident]](https://i.dailymail.co.uk/1s/2024/12/19/11/93310247-14209745-image-a-11_1734608738757.jpg)
Still images showed that the pull continued into the penalty box, with former referee Bobby Madden stating on social media that it was ‘100 per cent a penalty kick’ before expressing surprise that the three-man VAR team of Alan Muir, Frank Connor and Andrew Dallas failed to upgrade the award of a free-kick on the edge of the area.
![[Rangers manager Philippe Clement had questioned the decision after the final defeat]](https://i.dailymail.co.uk/1s/2024/12/19/11/93246289-14209745-image-a-12_1734608747000.jpg)
All three officials have been omitted from this weekend's match-list in the Scottish Premiership after Collum acknowledged that they had made a ‘really, really poor’ and ‘unacceptable’ decision in the course of a game Celtic went on to win on a penalty shootout after a 3-3 draw.
Speaking on the SFA’s The VAR Review show on YouTube, Collum admitted that the decision was rushed and should have provoked an immediate factual correction, with an instruction to referee John Beaton to award a penalty. ‘There's a holding incident we need to assess here. The holding's the key part of this decision, it's really, really important. There's been a lot said about the Rangers player has a foot on the penalty area line.
