Credit: TNT Sports

Exclusive: Referee 'inconsistency' slammed as Celtic awarded Young Boys penalty

Refereeing Consultant AUTHORITY Former FIFA Referee; Head of PGMOL (Professional Game Match Officials Limited). FOCUS Laws of the Game, VAR implementation, officiating performance, and PGMOL policy. THE AUDIT Keith utilises Statscore’s Officiating Telemetry, including Deep-Data Metrics like Incident Accuracy Rates, VAR Intervention Latency, and Official Positional Efficiency. He provides technical refereeing analysis to reveal the regulatory reality behind match-defining decisions.

Published on:

22 Jan 2025, 4:50 pm

Celtic were the beneficiaries of the "inconsistency" in refereeing decisions that is seen constantly now, says Keith Hackett.

The former PGMOL chief and ex-FIFA official exclusively told Football Insider that referee Rohit Saggi was given the opportunity to award a penalty in Celtic's favour by BSC Young Boys midfielder Darian Males mistake.

Celtic had an eventful first-half, with Japanese forward finding the back of the net three times, and all three of those goals were ruled out by Saggi.

A win against their opponents would have all but secured the Bhoys' place in the Champions League knockout rounds.

Celtic correctly awarded penalty says Hackett

The decision to give Celtic the penalty happened after a foul in the 39th minute.

Left-back Greg Taylor had pushed up to join his attackers, and won back the ball from Males.

The Swiss midfielder then pulled down the Scottish defender in a desperate attempt to stop him from getting a shot on goal.

When asked by Football Insider if the referee had made the right decision, Hackett said: "The left hand used to pull back the head of his opponent gave the opportunity for the referee to award a penalty kick.

"The inconsistency in holding offences is witnessed week in week out."

Celtic benefited from that inconsistency, but were unable to make it count as midfielder Arne Engels missed the spot-kick with a weak effort to the goalkeeper's left-hand side.

Arne Engels missed a penalty for Celtic in the first-half (Credit: Imago)

The Bhoys then had another fortuitous moment in the 86th minute, as substitute Adam Idah's effort was saved, but bounced into the goal off defender Loris Benito to give the Scottish side all three points.

Celtic could have had another penalty in the match, but the referee made the "correct" call by not giving it, according to Hackett.

Meanwhile off the pitch, Kieran Tierney is "definitely" moving back to Celtic, Paul Robinson exclusively told Football Insider.

In other news, Luis Palma could be leaving the Glasweigan side this January.

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Greg Taylor