SFA head of refereeing Willie Collum insists the officials were correct to allow Kilmarnock’s winning goal against Dundee United to stand.
Marley Watkins bundled the ball over the line after being adjudged to have fairly outjumped United goalkeeper Jack Walton.
On-field referee David Dickinson saw nothing wrong with the challenge and, despite footage showing the Killie attacker impeding the Tangerines’ No1 attempt to get a hand to the ball, VAR Greg Aitken was unmoved.
On the SFA’s regular VAR review show, Collum backed his whistlers.
“We support the decision of the goal being given on-field,” he said.
“The VAR (video assistant referee) and AVAR (assistant video assistant referee) go into a check, and they are also very comfortable at the outcome; that there’s not enough there for a foul on the goalkeeper.”
Asked about the similarity with Tony Watt’s disallowed goal against Rangers for a slight touch on Jack Butland – a parallel drawn by United boss Jim Goodwin – Collum batted away the comparison.
He continued: “You never get two decisions the exact same in football. The Motherwell v Rangers one was from a dead ball and the Motherwell player makes arm contact with the Rangers goalkeeper and never touches the ball.
“Here (Kilmarnock’s goal), there is a ball played into the penalty area, it is up in the air, and everybody has a right to challenge for that. The Kilmarnock player, in challenging for the ball, makes inevitable contact.
“For us, it’s not enough to be illegal contact.”
VAR would not have intervened if goal had been disallowed by Dickinson
But while Collum was “comfortable” with the goal being awarded, he acknowledged that, had Dickinson disallowed the effort, then VAR would have been unlikely to intervene.
“If the referee had deemed on-field that the arm contact with the goalkeeper was punishable then, again, that’s subjective,” he added. “It would be very difficult for the VAR to get involved.
“But what we cannot say is that it’s an error and we believe the goal was right to stand.”
Reflecting on Diomande red
Meanwhile, Collum stated that Mohamed Diomande’s red card against United last month should not have stood.
The Gers man was dismissed by referee Nick Walsh, who then chose not to take the advice of the VAR team that the perceived slap on Kevin Holt was not worthy of a dimissal.
Collum declared that to have been an error due to “negligible” contact and an absence of “brutality”. It was advised that the incident should have seen a yellow card brandished instead.
Conversation