You’ll never get a better example of why Scottish football needs VAR than Rangers virtual dead rubber against Ross County on Wednesday night.
Officials in Scotland have one major problem, they don’t just make decisions based on what has happened, they make decisions based on potential repercussions, what the score is and how early in the game it is.
Both semi-finals were a mess, Bobby Madden and John Beaton lost control and could easily have gotten a grip of the games early doors, in the Old Firm, John Lundstram and Callum McGregor got away with more than a few bookable tackles, and that’s without mentioning the clear penalty the Celtic skipper should have conceded for a foul on Ryan Kent in the opening minutes.
Not even a booking that’s a shocker 🤬👀 pic.twitter.com/XtMKcGb3f1
— 55 Broke them ❤️⚽💙🇬🇧 (@GaryGra04735164) May 11, 2022
With Rangers 2-0 up and coasting against County Jake Vokins went in high, late, from behind and in a scissor motion on Scott Wright, a free-kick was awarded by Andrew Dallas but it should also have been a red card. It ticked every box required to send him off.
Dallas made his decision based on the score line and Rangers control of them game not the actual foul, that there was another couple of bad tackles by County players after this one suggests that they knew that they could get away with them, had Vokins walked then they probably wouldn’t have had the same attitude.
Scottish football is still miles behind England and Europe when it comes to this sort of challenge, we can only hope that VAR allows the officials the extra time to make the correct and rational decision in the future. Wright was lucky to emerge unscathed, next time he might not.