Former referee Steve Conroy has demanded football return to simpler times after penalty incidents involving both Rangers and Celtic over the weekend.
The first call to give him the hump is Ryan Alebiosu being deemed to have handled the ball by Willie Collum after a VAR check, as he tussled with Ryan Kent in a 3-1 Premiership defeat for his Kilmarnock side versus Rangers. Then Greg Taylor was penalised for a handball when Alex Grieve flicked the ball onto his arm, although it mattered little in the end with Ange Postecoglou's champions swatting St Mirren aside 5-1.
Regardless, Conroy tells Grosvenor Sport that both calls by VAR and referees Collum plus David Dickinson were farcical, and that a return to his time in the middle is needed. He explained: "In a sane world, the real world, not in a million years is that a penalty (Alebiosu's incident). Never, ever. There’s no intent, he had no idea where the ball was. It hit him in that armpit zone where it’s already a borderline between a handball or not.
"But in this day and age - and with the current interpretation - it is. It’s ‘he didn’t need to have his hand up there’, ‘making himself big’ - all the usual catchphrases.
It’s just nonsense. An utter, utter farce, for the good of the game we need to have a look at this at the end of the season. Everyone is totally frustrated by it, you can see the look on players’ faces all the time.
“IFAB still spout that part of their raison d’etre is to look after the simplicity of the game. Sorry, they are doing anything but that when things like that can be interpreted as handball.
“The only way to get round it and bring sanity back is to go back to the old days when it was up to me, as referee, to decide whether a handball was deliberate or not. And that’s the end of the matter. It wasn’t perfect. It was prone to error, of course it was. But there’s absolutely no infallible way of judging a handball. VAR could get involved in flagging up a handball but cannot decide if it’s deliberate or not. All the weird and wonderful inventions in the world can’t decide that, so it must come down to the ref otherwise this lottery will continue.
“The Greg Taylor one at St Mirren is the same argument, although easier to suggest that it was a penalty as his arms were up out of his body at a strange angle. But NO WAY did he mean to handle that and the ball is kicked right in front of him, there’s nothing he can do about it. It's nonsense. I’d be more inclined to give it under the modern interpretation but, back in the sane days, you’d never have given it.”
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