Scottish referee chief slams VAR duo over Liam Scales penalty decision in Old Firm derby

Willie Collum slammed VAR duo Alan Muir and Frank Connor over the "unacceptable" decision not to award Rangers a penalty in their Premier Sports Cup final defeat to Celtic - as the SFA released the full audio exchange from Clydesdale House.

Ireland defender Liam Scales hauled down Vaclav Cerny with the clock ticking down in injury time with referee John Beaton awarding a free-kick to the Light Blues, reports the Daily Record.

Muir and Connor in the VAR room backed up the man in the middle - but Rangers boss Philippe Clement was incensed by the decision after watching Celtic lift the Premier Sports Cup after a penalty shoot-out victory and the fallout has rumbled on since.

Read More: Evan Ferguson linked to January transfer window move to Premier League side

Read More: Roy Keane slams Kyle Walker and is 'embarrassed' following incident

New Ibrox CEO Patrick Stewart demanded answers over the flashpoint and the blunder in the VAR room. SFA chief executive Ian Maxwell would then respond to the furious response emerging from Ibrox by admitting some "decisions will be wrong" due to human nature.

Speaking to the SFA's VAR Review, Head of Referee Operations Collum said: "There is a holding incident we need to assess. The holding is the key part of this incident. There has been a lot said about the Rangers player and he has a foot on the line, the foot is actually irrelevant in this case.

"It's about the holding and the holding only because that is where the contact begins. The holding begins outside the penalty area and continues on the line and even arguably on the line and into the penalty area. Regardless, as it's on the line this should be considered a penalty kick. So, the referee has awarded a free-kick on-field because he has correctly seen the pulling in terms of the foul play. The VAR team need to go into a check and decide whether this incident is inside or outside, and ultimately they have failed to come to the correct conclusion which is this should have been a factual overturn - no need for the referee to go to the monitor - a factual overturn for a penalty kick to be awarded."

Celtic players celebrating following victory over Rangers

Pressed on what went wrong, Collum continued: "People need to take time to decide whether it’s inside or outside. Ultimately from the TV pictures here this is not a difficult decision for the VAR team. They are not forensic enough in the analysis, they move far too quick.

"I think they are thrown because the majority of the Rangers’ players body is outside the penalty area but that’s irrelevant because of the holding and they should be making sure they get a clear image to show them that that continues into the penalty area.

"We have dissected this incident because people will hear me say today it’s wrong - but that’s not enough. We need to understand why did we get it wrong and how do we making things better, because people will find it very hard to accept this error. Very difficult to accept it."

Asked how the SFA take responsibility for the flashpoint, he added: "By firstly acknowledging that 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.

"We will do our very, very best through our coaching and analysis to make sure an incident like this never happens again. But it's a mistake, it's a bad mistake. You talk about accountability. I was very open when I took on this role at the start of the season that there would be accountability in refereeing.

"I told the media and the managers that we would deal with things internally. There would be accountability but we've been consistent with that throughout the season. I can assure people of that. I did say that if match officials find themselves not involved in future matches or we need to change the profile of a match for somebody, we won't come out and publicly say that, they way a manager doesn't come out and publicly talk about taking a player out. But we've also got a responsibility to protect the wider group of the referees and we've also got a real responsibility to protect the match officials involved in this as well."

VAR exchange in full

VAR: APP.

VAR: Pull.

SAR: Outside, looks just outside.

AVAR: Number five.

VAR: He's just outside the penalty area. There's not much more than that. You can see he's just outside there. It's really close. It's more outside. Agree? Really close.

AVAR: 100%.

VAR: Reset that.

Referee: Okay guys, are we all good to go in the VAR centre?

VAR: Yeah, we're good to go. No ongoing checks.

Referee: Okay, thanks mate.

Get the latest sports headlines straight to your inbox by signing up for free email alerts.