A former referee has called on Scottish football to 'change its mindset' when it comes to handball penalty decisions.
Stuart Dougal insists those within the game, as well as supporters, need to learn to accept that the new handball rule will lead to more spot kicks.
It comes after VAR drama in Sunday's match between Ross County and Celtic.
Willie Collum has come under scrutiny after he awarded a penalty to the Hoops after being advised by VAR to look at the pitchside monitor.
He reviewed an incident between Cameron Carter-Vickers and Alex Iacovitti, with the ball appearing to roll off the County defender's arm.
Collum eventually pointed to the spot, as Jota converted to give the champions the lead. Alexandero Bernabei then netted Celtic's second of the game late in the match.
Malky MacKay was furious at the decision, but Dougal has warned him and others that they need to accept that the handball rule.
Asked on BBC Scotland's The Vardict if there was any argument against giving a pen, Dougal responded: “Not in my eyes and you have to look at angles. It’s very difficult for the match referee there. He’s blocked and can’t see that. The assistant referee equally and by the laws of the game, that’s a clear handball.
“For anybody that doesn’t think that’s a clear handball, you need to change your mindset. Because this will be given week in, week out while we have VAR.
“I’m sorry to say that when I watched it in real-time, I thought: ‘Ooh, there's something worth looking at there again.’ Maybe that’s my referee's eye, but it didn’t surprise me that the referee was asked to go and have a look at that again. There was absolutely no doubt in my mind that there was only going to be one outcome, and that was a penalty.
“The way I tend to look at it is, if it happened up in the other penalty area, Malky Mackay would be looking for a penalty, I’m absolutely certain about that. Under the current interpretation of the laws of the game, he would be absolutely right to be looking for a penalty.
“It’s a sore one just on half-time. Ross County have held out and the penalty decision goes against them. We can understand that, but I’ll say it again, the mindset has to change. It’s incumbent upon anybody involved in football, not to be criticising referees when they’re giving the right decisions, and not to be criticising VAR when they're stepping in to help match officials get the right decisions.
“I also think if the mindset changed, we’d welcome or embrace VAR more and take the positives out of it, not the mistakes it’s making.”
