Honest Celtic punter admits Hearts were hard done by as Hotline takes SFA to task over 4 VAR calls

The SFA rolled out their new 40-minute VAR review show this week.

But they might have to double the running time of next month’s instalment going by the number of talking points thrown up over the weekend. The main controversies came at Parkhead and Paisley. At Celtic Park, Hearts had a spot-kick award overturned by the telly officials before Brendan Rodgers’ champions saw a penalty of their own sanctioned. And Ian McDonald, Innerleithen, said: “SFA must stand for Scottish Fraud Association. Hearts had a stonewall penalty. Celtic’s penalty was a also stonewall penalty. The only difference, Celtic go theirs and we didn’t. Why do we bother?”

Chris Lowe, Yoker, returned from his summer hols to say: “Surprise, surprise. Brendan Rodgers says both VAR calls were correct. The same Rodgers who dog whistled to the lowest elements of the Celtic support by naming an official in this very fixture last season when they lost. As predictable as night follows day, everything is rosey and correct as the decisions went Celtic's way.”

Celtic ended up winning 2-0 but William Hutchison, Aberdeen, said: “Celtic should have put Hearts to bed in the first half but to me, if you gave one penalty to us then Hearts’ one should have stood too. No wonder the other teams think Old Firm always get favours.”

Frank Johnson emailed in: “Agree with Steven Naismith that if the Hearts pen was not given, then neither should the Celtic spot kick. This is the problem with this VAR system - no consistency. Pity that the two incidents are the main talking point of a decent match.”

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