There have been concerns about how consistent the referees have been this season, and Celtic saw yet another example of this today against St. Johnstone.
Even though it looked like Daizen Maeda was going to score, Luke Robinson stopped his shot, and the ball seemed to hit Robinson’s arm, denying Maeda a clear chance to score.
The referee gave Hearts a penalty at Tynecastle after the ball hit Tomoki Iwata by accident. The St. Johnstone defender purposely went out of his way to stop Maeda’s shot.
Point blank range etc or not, handball preventing a goal is a pen
Refereeing is criminal#CELSTJ
pic.twitter.com/clLsdwgZ84— Quinny (@Quinny3001) March 16, 2024
Even though VAR was used, the decision was that there was no penalty. This is another confusing call by the Scottish officials, who haven’t done a great job this season.
Simply put, Celtic scores if the defender doesn’t use his hand to block. With the score at 0-0, that kind of mistake could have cost Celtic the win today and the league title in the end.
On a different day, that call would have been the talk of the game. But since Celtic won 3-1, Kyogo Furuhashi and Nicolas Kuhn will get all the praise for their great performance.
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