Aberdeen fury over ‘guessed’ VAR offside decision as new manager set to be appointed

Aberdeen have claimed VAR is having a negative impact on Scottish football after discovering officials effectively “guessed” that their stoppagetime winner at Livingston should be disallowed following a technical failure.

The Dons saw their hopes of a cinch Premiership top-six finish disappear when Bojan Miovski’s goal was disallowed for an offside against Angus Macdonald in the build-up.

Aberdeen argued their “relative public silence” on VAR issues was “no longer tenable” following talks with the SFA on the decision and hearing transcripts from the match officials. The talks revealed the video assistants were unable to calibrate the lines because of a camera failure, instead freezing the footage to determine by eye, as is allowed by VAR protocols. Video assistant Matthew Macdermid decided Macdonald was offside. The SFA later produced retrospective footage to prove the right decision had been made in the end.

An Aberdeen statement read: “The SFA accepted there is no conceivable way the VAR could tell definitively the deepest position of Livingston midfielder Daniel Mckay’s body, because from the only angle available the lower half of Mckay’s body is completely obscured from view, blocked by other players. Even if his full body was visible, it’s impossible to determine who was closest to the goal line with no onpitch ‘markers’.”

Meanwhile, reports yesterday claimed that Aberdeen have reached an agreement for Jimmy Thelin to become their new manager. Thelin will leave Elfsborg following their game against IFK Gothenburg on June 1 to begin his career at Pittodrie.