Bobby Madden has expressed his views on Rangers' claims that talks with the Scottish FA concluded the non-award of a penalty for handball against Celtic's Alistair Johnston on Saturday was incorrect.
The former FIFA referee asked users on social media 'What did people expect?', as he pointed to the release of the subsequent offside image as the 'outstanding issue'.
The ex-Scottish official insists that mistakes will occur with subjective decisions involving handball.
Responding to this evening's news, he wrote on his new X account: "What did people expect? Referee missed call on field, understandable in my opinion.
"VAR didn’t think it was a penalty and didn’t check APP. Mistakes happen regarding subjective decisions. Releasing the offside image sometime later is the outstanding issue."
Replying to his other X users in the thread, he made some further comments about the situation.
He wrote: "Not the best look that’s for sure. It wouldn’t have been the VAR that later released the offside image, that would be who was overseeing VAR operations.
"They’ve likely realised pen should have been reviewed and shared offside to try demonstrate penalty couldn’t have been awarded.
"The person overseeing VAR would have shared the offside image, probably thinking it was a good idea to show that that penalty couldn’t be awarded either way. I’d say that was an error on their part."
On the undeniable subjectivity over the handball rule, he added: "Handball interpretation is a shambles. Look how almost every handball is debated. Put yourself in that highly pressurised environment with all the various criteria and guidance and mistakes will happen."
A Rangers spokesperson said: “Rangers FC today met with Scottish FA officials to discuss the VAR handball call and subsequent miscommunications from Saturday’s Old Firm match.
“From the meeting, there was an overriding consensus the VAR decision of no handball was incorrect.
“Having listened to the audio, there is no mention of a potential offside at the time of the handball decision. Rangers is also deeply concerned at the haste at which the erroneous no-handball call was made.
“Rangers has appealed to the Scottish FA to release the audio and explain this decision, and future contentious decisions involving all clubs, to the public, as would be common practice in England for such a decision.
“The club has made a number of specific requests that it hopes the Scottish FA will respond to in order to improve matters going forward.”
