Celtic lose appeal over Auston Trusty red card against Hearts

Celtic have lost an appeal against a red card shown to defender Auston Trusty during Sunday’s 2-2 draw with Hearts.

Trusty was sent off in the top-of-the-table clash at Tynecastle for a challenge on Landry Kabore as the Hearts forward chased a ball in behind the Celtic back line.

Match referee Steven McLean initially showed Trusty a yellow card for the foul but VAR intervened to send McLean to the monitor, where he decided that the defender had prevented a goalscoring opportunity and changed the yellow card for red.

Celtic believe he reached the wrong decision and submitted an appeal to challenge the call and have Trusty’s automatic one-game ban overturned.

A panel dismissed the appeal at a fast-track hearing on Tuesday.

Trusty will now miss Celtic’s next league match at home to Falkirk on Sunday.

Following the final whistle on Sunday, Celtic boss Martin O’Neill had made it clear he thought the officials had blundered in a high-stakes game, with the result leaving Hearts at the top of the table and Celtic six points behind in third place.

“I did have an argument with the red card,” O’Neill said. “The referee has given a yellow card. Obviously, VAR’s re-refereeing the game.

“First of all, the ball is going away from goal, so the player has to get a hold of that and control it. And secondly, and more importantly, is that we’ve got someone covering.

“That’s what the referee saw in the first place, and he was pretty close to it. It puts you under severe pressure in the last 20-odd minutes.”

A statement from the Hoops read: “Celtic’s appeal over the red card shown to Auston Trusty in the draw against Hearts at Tynecastle on Sunday has been dismissed, following a Scottish FA hearing today (Tuesday).
Clearly we are very disappointed at the outcome of today’s appeal.

“The VAR Protocol requires that VAR only intervenes when there is a ‘clear and obvious error’.

“It is difficult to see how the original yellow card decision is a clear and obvious error and accordingly, VAR’s intervention by the refereeing team was not consistent with the rules.

“We await the written judgement but will be ensuring further discussions with the SFA on the matter as we seek to understand the rationale for this and other decisions.”