{"id":598561,"date":"2026-05-22T19:53:11","date_gmt":"2026-05-22T19:53:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/598561\/"},"modified":"2026-05-22T19:53:11","modified_gmt":"2026-05-22T19:53:11","slug":"sfa-refereeing-panel-finds-celtic-wrong-to-get-late-controversial-penalty-against-motherwell","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/598561\/","title":{"rendered":"SFA refereeing panel finds Celtic wrong to get late controversial penalty against Motherwell"},"content":{"rendered":"

The SFA\u2019s KMI refereeing panel has ruled Celtic should not have been awarded a last-minute penalty in their penultimate Scottish Premiership match against Motherwell.<\/p>\n

Martin O\u2019Neill\u2019s men won 3-2 at Fir Park thanks to Kelechi Iheanacho\u2019s spot-kick deep into stoppage time.<\/p>\n

That victory enabled them to take it to a final day title-decider against Hearts, which saw them clinch the title after a 3-1 win at Celtic Park.<\/p>\n

However, the independent referee panel has ruled that VAR should not have intervened in the awarding of the spot kick at Fir Park.<\/p>\n

The ball was launched into the box and Motherwell attacker Sam Nicholson was adjudged to have handled in the penalty area as he challenged for the ball with Auston Trusty.<\/p>\n

The referee John Beaton didn\u2019t notice anything untoward with the challenge, but was called to the monitor by VAR official Andrew Dallas.<\/p>\n

Beaton took less than 20 seconds to decide it was a penalty after looking at replays and Iheanacho slotted the resulting spot kick to take it down to the final day.<\/p>\n

If the score had remained 2-2, then Celtic would have needed to beat Hearts by three clear goals to clinch the title.<\/p>\n

The decision sparked huge controversy with pundits outside the Scottish game calling it the \u201cworst VAR decision they had ever seen\u201d.<\/p>\n

In the KMI panel\u2019s verdict, published on Friday, they stated: \u201cThe majority (2:1) of the panel deemed the on-field decision of play on to be correct.<\/p>\n

\u201cTwo panel members felt VAR was incorrect to intervene and the penalty was incorrectly awarded for handball after OFR.<\/p>\n

\u201cOne panel member felt that VAR was correct to intervene and a penalty should have been awarded.\u201d<\/p>\n

STV News is now on WhatsApp<\/p>\n

Get all the latest news from around the country<\/p>\n

Follow STV News <\/a>Follow STV News on WhatsApp<\/p>\n

Scan the QR code on your mobile device for all the latest news from around the country<\/p>\n

\"WhatsApp<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The SFA\u2019s KMI refereeing panel has ruled Celtic should not have been awarded a last-minute penalty in their…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":598562,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[33],"tags":[218,101,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-598561","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-football","tag-football","tag-sports","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/598561","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=598561"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/598561\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/598562"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=598561"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=598561"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=598561"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}