Celtic should be demanding more than answers on VAR. We should be demanding reform.

In the aftermath of last night’s game against St Mirren, it’s no surprise to see some in the media trying to whip up the latest Celtic VAR controversy.

The latest decision that everyone thinks should have gone against us—but didn’t—and the fact that it came when the home club was only a goal behind? That’s the big talking point. It’s almost as if the same thing didn’t happen to us at Easter Road when the home club was only a goal in front.

It’s the usual with the media. Any decision Celtic gets will be scrutinised like the Zapruder film, while every single one that goes against us gets shrugged off as no big deal. I was going to write this article anyway, but Robinson’s comments in the aftermath of the match gave it a little extra impetus when he said that he intends to write to the SFA and hopes to get an answer.

Well, “SFA” is precisely the answer I suspect he’ll get—since that’s exactly what Celtic got when we queried the decision at Hibs. A decision which we now know—and which we knew at the time, and which we’ve been saying all week—was grossly at odds with what’s in the rulebook. They admitted a mistake was made. That mistake arguably cost us points. But they don’t care about that. If they did, they’d get VAR fixed in one big damn hurry. And I think they’re fortunate indeed that they don’t have a viable title race here in Scotland because this just wouldn’t fly in a real one.

They’re lucky that this title race is effectively over. Because if we had dropped points, if there was something still to play for, something truly at stake last weekend, hell would have been paid. Hell would certainly have been raised. And all the naff excuses and after-the-fact justifications wouldn’t have mattered a damn.

Celtic is still entitled to an answer—not just the confirmation that the goal should have stood, but an explanation as to why it didn’t. We’re entitled to know why the VAR official took it upon himself to interpret the rules as he saw fit because the rules are pretty clear on this one. A clear and obvious error? There was no clear and obvious error. There was nothing clear, and there was nothing obvious about the images he looked at. And so that decision is a scandal.

As I’m writing this, I’ve just watched an astonishing decision in the FA Cup game between Newcastle and Brighton, where Newcastle had the ball in the net deep into injury time—only for the goal to be chopped off for an offside so minor as to be virtually nonexistent.

Newcastle’s players were furious. Their manager, Eddie Howe, was furious. Everyone at their club will be furious. But it’s a technically correct decision. And the reason we know that is because their VAR system is vastly superior to what we have here, using every bit of up-to-date technology to arrive at the right call.

None of us is comfortable leaving so many crucial decisions in games to the subjectivity of our officials. And I’m certainly not comfortable leaving any decision in the hands of someone like Alan Muir, whose history we all know all too well. To say this guy is not a friend of ours is putting it mildly.

It’s not good enough that a guy like that is entrusted with one of our games and is able to make a decision like this purely off his own back—and for the SFA to then admit a wrong decision was made without providing an explanation as to why.

It’s also not good enough for us to pretend that a VAR system this second-rate, this second-tier, can possibly justify all the money clubs are spending on it. It makes our game a laughing stock.

Celtic shouldn’t settle for simply demanding answers; not that we’ve gotten them anyway. No, what Celtic should be demanding is change.

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