BT offer to trial VAR in Scottish football

Scottish league bosses have been offered a free trial of Video Assistant Referees (VAR) on feature games following a midweek card filled with controversy.

BT Sport made the offer to the SPFL after a number of contentious decisions.

The television company’s Scottish football presenter, Darrell Currie, posted on Twitter: “There is a lot of anger directed at our referees... well here you go, we are offering the SPFL and SFA to trial VAR on our live games... let’s do it?”

The SPFL has consistently stated that the use of VAR would be too costly for the Scottish game with spending priorities elsewhere.

The offer came after the second major sticking point to hit Hearts in four days. After manager Craig Levein criticised the match officials in the wake of Rangers’ offside winner on Sunday, they were on the end of a bizarre penalty award when St Johnstone’s Liam Gordon went down in the box amid no apparent contact.

Referee Andrew Dallas, who gave Celtic a Betfred Cup final penalty on Sunday for a handball outside the box, pointed to the spot and Saints sealed a 2-2 draw.

Elsewhere, Celtic manger Brendan Rodgers felt his team had a good goal disallowed by Kevin Clancy in a 1-1 draw at Motherwell when Filip Benkovic was penalised as he tucked home a corner.

Aberdeen striker Sam Cosgrove and Alfredo Morelos both received two yellow cards from Steven McLean.

The Colombian’s first foul looked innocuous while Dons boss Derek McInnes labelled Cosgrove’s second booking “astonishing”.