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The National (Scotland)
The National (Scotland)
Sport
Ewan Paton

VAR has negatively impacted Celtic's 'spontaneity', says ex-referee

Celtic have suffered in terms of their 'spontaneity' because of VAR.

That's the viewpoint of former referee Hugh Dallas.

Since the introduction of the video technology two seasons ago, fans, players and coaches have come to expect length delays during matches while incidents are checked at Clydesdale House.

And with Brendan Rodgers wanting his team to play as a fast pace, Dallas believes that's somewhat been taken away from them.

Dallas told BBC Sportsound: "I’ve not got the experience these guys have had with playing, but within the first month that it was introduced I all of a sudden noticed how it affected Celtic.

"Because when Celtic restart play from a goal kick they get the ball thrown to them quickly, it’s down and it’s away.

"They can’t do that now. Because when the ball goes out of play they will say ‘check, wait, wait, delay the restart, delay, delay deal, ok we can go’. All of a sudden that spontaneity was gone. I just found as a non-football knowledge that changed one team.”

Dundee manager Tony Docherty was also in the studio this afternoon.

And the Scottish Premiership boss expressed his frustrations regarding how long VAR checks can take.

He said: "There is a lot of issues with that at the moment. We are talking about VAR checks taking long enough at the moment. A lot of people don't understand the protocol with VAR - you check a penalty incident then you have got to go back and look if it was offside.

"We had a situation in the Old Firm game earlier in the season, and then you have got to say if it's not offside was there any foul play in the lead up. That takes a long, long time before you can make a decision."

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