BBC pundit claims Sportscene helps out SFA with unseen footage of controversial Rangers v Celtic incident
Neil McCann claims BBC Sportscene has helped out the SFA after showing unseen footage of a controversial incident in the Rangers game against Celtic on Saturday (30 December).
Speaking on the BBC’s Scottish football highlights show on Saturday (27:45), the pundit said it was a “very contentious moment” when a penalty wasn’t awarded against the Hoops right-back Alistair Johnston for handball.
After Gers forward Abdallah Sima was shown to be offside in the build-up, McCann added that Sportscene probably helped out the SFA as that image wasn’t shown on the live broadcast until the second half, something he believes is a “big issue”.
“This is a very contentious moment,” said McCann.
“This is the moment everyone is talking about,” added host Jonathan Sutherland. “Alistair Johnston handball incident, VAR looked at it.”
“It’s a penalty, it should’ve been a penalty,” said McCann. “We’ll probably help the SFA out here because we didn’t see this in the live match until the second half and that’s a big issue. We’ll probably speak some more about it.”
Makes no sense
There has been an awful lot of debate around the Johnston handball incident in the first half as the ball clearly struck the arm of the defender.
The strange thing is that VAR seemingly didn’t award a penalty because they felt it wasn’t a clear and obvious error by the on-field official.
It doesn’t seem as though the fact Sima was in an offside position was initially spotted by VAR, so whether or not that would’ve been noticed later as they went through the whole footage is anyone’s guess.
The Gers have asked the SFA to provide the audio on the incident, but the likely fallback is going to be that the Senegalese was offside in the build-up.
Philippe Clement certainly won’t want to dwell on the result for too long as he knows he has to get his Light Blues side back to winning ways again as they look to continue their fight for more trophies this season.
In other Rangers news, Jamie O’Hara has shared his Old Firm regret live on air.