Scottish referee boss Willie Collum says Celtic’s controversial VAR penalty against Kilmarnock was a mistake

Scottish football’s head of referees declared that the type of penalty that earned Celtic a last-gasp William Hill Premiership win at Kilmarnock last month should not be given in future.

Killie defender Lewis Mayo was penalised for handball by referee John Beaton after a VAR review before Kelechi Iheanacho scored from the spot to secure a 2-1 stoppage-time victory.

The ball had struck Mayo after a shot had deflected off team-mate Robbie Deas.

Scottish Football Association head of referees Willie Collum told the VAR Review Show: “The arm is definitely up, it’s unnatural.

“If the shot goes direct here and hits Lewis Mayo in that position and there’s no deflection, it’s 100 per cent a penalty kick.

“Even in this situation with the deflection, in law you can justify a penalty because of the body shape. The law doesn’t talk about deflection or close proximity. This is guidance rather than law, which talks about unnatural position.

“However it’s about stakeholders’ views and pretty much nobody accepted this as a penalty.

“We’ve had good discussions with the KMI (key match incident) panel, with clubs and also players and the feeling is this should not be punished going forward.

“So we want to recalibrate in terms of this decision, that if it’s such close proximity and it’s deflected, even if the arm’s in this position, then we don’t punish it.

“But there’s a slight caveat to that and that is two key words – impact, consequence. If we put this in the goal line and the ball’s going into the net then it changes everything altogether.”

Collum added that Hearts’ Lawrence Shankland should have been punished for handball in the build-up to his opening goal against Rangers in a 2-0 win at Ibrox the same weekend.

“It should have been brought back,” he said. “Lawrence Shankland’s arm is too far out here. There is a deflection but the arm is out far enough to be given. In our opinion this goal should have been disallowed.”

Collum agreed with decisions over other contentious handball incidents in September, saying Deas should not have been punished against St Mirren because his arm was in a natural position.

He also fully backed the decisions to award penalties for Hibernian against Falkirk and against Dundee United’s Vicko Sevelj, stating that the midfielder should have received a yellow card and not the red he was given because the handball was not deliberate.

Collum explained that Martin Boyle had a goal correctly disallowed at Ibrox as a factual overturn because the ball hit his hand immediately before he scored.

The former referee also backed the decision to disallow a Rangers goal for a foul by Thelo Aasgaard against Hearts goalkeeper Alexander Schwolow, although he added that VAR would not have intervened if the goal had been given.

“The Rangers player is focused on the goalkeeper and moves towards the goalkeeper,” he said. “There is a hand on the chest area, then eventually a hand on the arm.”

Collum also backed ref Ross Hardie’s decision to stick with the stoppage-time penalty he awarded to Dundee, which enraged Livingston boss David Martindale.

Hardie was called to his monitor after the video assistants claimed Charlie Reilly had initiated contact with Danny Wilson after the defender initially put his boot out then planted it.

“We can fully support the penalty,” Collum said. “What we don’t want in this exact scenario is a referee brought to the monitor. We don’t think this is clear to say he’s wrong in this scenario.”