Exclusive: Collum, Atkinson to apologise to St Mirren for Celtic penalty incident
Celtic should have conceded a late penalty in their win over St Mirren, according to Keith Hackett.
The former PGMOL chief and ex-FIFA official exclusively told Football Insider that Stephen Robinson’s side are due an apology after being denied a spot kick in that match.
Brendan Rodgers saw his side take another big step towards the Scottish Premiership title with a 5-2 victory away at St Mirren on Saturday (1 March).
But while the scoreline may look comfortable for Celtic, things may have been different had a key decision gone in a different way late on in the game.
St Mirren denied potentially key penalty in defeat
With less than five minutes of normal time remaining and the Scottish champions leading 3-2, the hosts felt they should have been given the chance to equalise from the spot.
After the ball was played to Roland Idowu inside the Celtic penalty area, the St Mirren substitute went down after a sliding challenge from Alastiar Johnston.
Referee Mathew MacDermid did not award a penalty, and despite replays suggesting Johnston got little if any contact on the ball, VAR did not intervene to suggest a review that could have awarded a spot kick.
Having survived that penalty scare, Celtic then scored two late goals through Daizen Maeda and Yang Hyun-Jun to add some extra gloss to the scoreline.
| Scottish Premiership position | Played | Points |
| 1. Celtic | 29 | 75 |
| 2. Rangers | 29 | 59 |
Already this season, St Mirren have publically spoken out about VAR decisions that have gone against them, and it is unlikely they will be happy with this either.
Earlier this week, Hackett had praised Scotland’s head of referees Willie Collum for his response to Dundee United’s disallowed goal against Hibernian, caused by MacDermid as the video assistant.
Now he has suggested that Collum may have to take similar action again after this latest incident.
Keith Hackett reacts as Celtic avoid late penalty concession
Speaking to Football Insider about the decision not to award a penalty against Celtic, the former referee said:
“The referee is in a good position to make a judgment but wrongly determines that no offence had taken place.
“This was a clear and obvious error so where was VAR to intervene and let the referee review the incident?
“This was a penalty kick so Willie Collum, Head of Referees in Scotland, and former Premier League referee Martin Atkinson, Head of VAR, will need to apologise and advise why this error took place and what action they intend to take to ensure this error is not repeated in the future.”
Celtic are next in action when they face Hibernian in the Scottish Cup quarter finals next weekend, with St Mirren not playing until travel to face Motherwell at Fir Park the week after.