Scotland’s third rate VAR system is a national embarrassment.

Today at Falkirk we saw another one of those VAR moments that shames this game and proves, yet again, that this is a footballing banana republic. This is not a pro-Celtic, anti-Ibrox rant. It is not about the fairness or unfairness of the decision that went the Ibrox club’s way at the end of the first half.

This is a clear case showing up an amateurish technical system and the equally dreadful officials we have in this league of ours.

Towards the end of the first half, the Ibrox club scored after the ball appeared to go out. The Falkirk players stopped and waited for the decision. It never came. The incident was allegedly reviewed by VAR, but according to the BBC, VAR did not have a camera angle that could prove it one way or the other. Convenient as that sounds, it also sounds true, because we know that VAR systems in Scotland are not worth a damn.

What we have here is a cheaply cobbled-together version of VAR that is absolutely useless a lot of the time, and clubs are paying for it.

Falkirk are one of the clubs paying for it.

They are entitled to expect a system that actually does what it is supposed to do. For the governing body to be forced to admit that it did not have a camera angle on that particular moment is shocking. It means VAR cannot be relied upon in that part of the ground at all. So, Falkirk are entitled to ask why they are paying for a system that does not work.

Last week FIFA published the officials list for the coming World Cup, and one of the more interesting things to come out of that list was the fact that there was not a single SFA official on it. It is no damn wonder.

For all the so-called innovations, for all the supposed leaps forward, for all the people hailing Willie Collum for coming on television and explaining certain decisions, this is still a frighteningly amateurish association run by fourth-rate individuals and tolerating what we have long been aware is a third-rate VAR system at best.

The officials cannot walk away from this either.

Where was the linesman’s flag? The Falkirk players clearly thought the ball was out, so why did the official not? This is a joke.

I am not alleging bias here. I am not alleging that the Ibrox club got some massive favour from the brethren, although when you look at the guy who refereed the game and when you look at the guy in the VAR room, you do not exactly see friends of Celtic. But FIFA tsays we have incompetent officials, and this surely offers more proof of exactly that.

VAR is supposed to be the great insurance policy against decisions that are blatantly wrong. For the governing body to have to say that our version of it cannot always tell right from wrong is appalling. It is embarrassing. It heaps further humiliation on an association already weighed down by it after the FIFA announcement.

What world football’s governing body says, essentially, in denying Scottish officials any place at the World Cup, is that we are one of the worst-officiated countries in Europe, and quite possibly in the world itself. That is a staggering verdict from the very top of football, but it is not an unexpected one.

This will continue to happen as long as clubs tolerate it.

Falkirk should be raising nine kinds of hell over that decision. More than that, they should be raising nine kinds of hell over the fact that they have essentially pissed their money away on something that has not delivered, on something that is incapable of delivering.

That is the real problem here.

It is not just that the system got a decision wrong. It is not just that the officials got a decision wrong. It is the fact that they were unable even to make a decision because of the substandard nature of our version of the technology.

If you bought a brand-new car on the promise that it had an elite-level safety system, and then found out that what had actually been installed was a cheap knock-off version, one full of blind spots and tech failures that left you dangerously exposed, you would be pretty damned angry. That is assuming, of course, that you were lucky enough to survive a major incident before finding that out.

When all the fancy equipment was being set up and tested today, did anybody bother to tell Falkirk that it did not cover in a certain part of the ground?

Did anybody tell them that the system was inaccurate or inefficient? I will say it again. It is embarrassing that our national association has stuck us with the football equivalent of Betamax in the era of Blu-ray.

I do not know how much longer clubs will continue to pay for this low-tech farce.

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