Dundee boss Tony Docherty remains a proponent of VAR despite it working against them in Saturday’s defeat to Rangers.
Phillipe Clement’s side were awarded a spot-kick midway through the contest, with the score finely poised at 1-1.
Kevin Clancy initially signalled for a goal kick to Dundee, but after being instructed to check the VAR monitor, the referee pointed to the spot.
Docherty is a fan of using technology to assist referees but is critical of how it is currently being implemented.
He believes the referee was best placed on Saturday to make the call and had no option but to award a penalty after being presented with a freeze-frame from the incident.
“I did welcome [VAR]” said Docherty. “We are a progressive football club and VAR is a progressive thing for Scottish football.
“But for me it is the way it is being used that is the big issue.
“Steven Kirkland, the VAR – they are re-refereeing games.
“Going back to what I said on Saturday, for me it is the image Kevin Clancy was shown.
“He deemed it wasn’t a penalty but then the way it is presented to him from Kirkland, he can’t not give a penalty.
“Every single person I have spoken to since, no-one thinks it is a penalty, particularly anyone who knows anything about football – it is never a penalty kick.
“But when Kevin is presented with that image, he has to give it.
“So that’s the issue I’ve got with it, that it is being used in the wrong way.”
The controversial penalty was converted by James Tavernier, leaving Dundee with an uphill battle at Ibrox.
It came after a bright start, with Amadou Bakayoko putting the visitors in front on five minutes.
But the penalty, a crucial goal in the game at a crucial time, threw a spanner in the works of Docherty’s game plan.
Dundee embrace ‘progressive’ VAR
“It is not really for me to say, I can’t give the answer to what the solution is,” added the Dundee manager, who now faces a festive fixture schedule that could go a long way to defining their season.
“I do think it is a progressive tool for Scottish football but we are not using it properly when we are using it to re-referee things.
“My big point was that Kevin Clancy was in the middle of that penalty, he was looking at the situation, seeing everything ahead of him, he is hearing everything and more importantly he is feeling everything.
“But the decision has been taken by someone in a sanitised situation who doesn’t get all that see, hear, feel thing.
“The biggest thing for me as a manager and as a coaching staff, we had objectives in that game and set ourselves targets.
“But to lose a goal like that on 25 minutes was really damaging.”
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