MALKY MACKAY says the SFA’s reputation is on the line over the implementation of VAR and the handball rule, with the Ross County manager calling for a summer summit between referee chief Crawford Allan and Premiership bosses to discuss how games in Scotland are being officiated.
Mackay was furious after referee Euan Anderson overturned his on-field decision to award his side a penalty in their defeat at Fir Park after a VAR review, and salt was rubbed into his wounds as Keith Watson was penalised deep into stoppage time for a handball to allow Kevin van Veen to slot home the winner from the spot.
The County boss says that VAR is now refereeing matches, with officials now failing to apply common sense to the rules of the game.
“I hope that will be looked at by Crawford (Allan) and the Scottish FA,” Mackay said. “It’s their reputation – not mine and not yours.
“The referees’ reputations are being spoken about every week. The handball rule is the rule – there’s nothing we can do about it.
“Common sense seems to have gone from the situation. We have a law of the game where Fifa say if the ball touches the hand outwith the body, that isn’t having common sense attached to it.
“We got one against us at Dundee United that skims a pinky - it was ridiculous. When we played Celtic, we got one against us that skimmed a shoulder and nobody claimed for.
“The bar has been changed in Europe because there was an appeal in the Champions League that wasn’t even looked at. But here, every time the ref goes to the monitor they don’t stand by their decision. They are changing it and there is nobody saying, ‘I've seen it in real time’.
“I would hope there are internal discussions between the refs, the supervisor and the SFA,
“And I would hope the clubs are involved as there is a lot of discord and the clear and obvious thing isn’t working properly.
“Could it come too late for us? Yeah, completely and there’s nothing I can do about that.”
Specifically addressing the two penalty incidents, Mackay added: “The ref thinks it was a stonewall penalty and those were his exact words because I went on to the pitch at the end to ask him.
“My bugbear is that he made a genuine error by not letting the move finish because he blows the whistle before the ball breaks to George Harmon, who then kicks it over the bar.
“That’s the edict so if there are new rules then they all have to be adhered to, not just some of them.
“He’s made an error and he admitted that to me, because he’d thought it was such a stonewall penalty.
“Someone sitting in a room decides it’s not, but he’s involved in the game, watching it happen in real time from five yards away.
“The guy in the studio [Willie Collum], meanwhile, is looking at frames and looking at stills, which we all know is something different.
“Also, if it takes four minutes to decide that it isn’t a penalty then it hasn’t been a clear-cut error but that’s where we are now – VAR is re-refereeing games.
“Most managers in the Premiership I speak to can’t believe where the bar has been set for these decisions in this country compared to what we see in England.
“It makes it sickening when, in the 96th minute, the ball strikes Keith Watson’s hand when he’s not even looking at it and it flicks up against him.
“I spoke to Motherwell goalkeeper Liam Kelly and he couldn’t believe they gave a penalty was given for that.
“I’d also be interested to discover how many other games have had 12 minutes of added time this season.”
