Rangers boss Philippe Clement insists he’s been scarred for life by Sunday’s cup final VAR cock-up.

The Ibrox boss revealed he had spoken directly with Willie Collum in the wake of the Hampden howler which the SFA ref’s chief himself admitted was “unacceptable”. And while Clement is satisfied with the openness and transparency offered by Collum he last night branded the episode a “really bad advert” for Scottish football. The Belgian claims the whole of Europe has been talking about the extra-time incident where the VAR team of Alan Muir and Frank Connor failed to spot Liam Scales’ foul on Vaclav Cerny carried on into the Celtic box.

Muir and Connor have been left off of duties for this weekend’s Premiership action while Rangers need to pick themselves up from their Hampden shoot out despair as Dundee visit Ibrox this afternoon. But Clement said he’ll never get over the penalty that wasn’t given. He said: “I had a lot of questions and texts. But not only me, also all the foreign players. I had some players in Monaco who sent me messages about that action. Yes, all of Europe has been talking about it.

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"This moment is going to stay a scar. I had a few moments like it in my career and this will stay one. But now I’m looking forward to making a bright future with the club and this team. All my focus, all my energy is into that.”

Collum admitted the failure of the VAR duo to reverse on-field referee John Beaton’s decision to award Rangers a free kick after Scales pulled down Cerny was “a really, really poor decision”. And while Clement welcomed the honesty of the he doubled down on the Ibrox club’s statement earlier this week in which they claimed the incident had “damaged the credibility” of Scottish football.

Asked if the club had received an apology from the SFA, Clement would only say: “That's not a question for me. It's good that Patrick Stewart (Rangers new CEO) is here now to address these questions.”

But he went on: “I spoke personally with him (Collum). He gave me the same explanation that he did afterwards online. He explained everything, what happened and that he was not satisfied with that clearly. And it was unacceptable.

“So he used the same words that he used in his online press conference. It's been good that there was transparency from Willie Collum and openness and honesty about what happened. It doesn't help in the end for the result, because it's a game-decisive moment, but we appreciate the honesty.”

Clement hopes the fall out from the controversy can lead to a tightening up on standards. He said: “Everybody in the club hopes that Willie is not alone in his fight to get standards better, but everybody at the top of the SFA also has the same ambition to make things better. These things cannot happen because it's not only for Rangers or for every team losing a game like that, but it's also for Scottish football, a really bad advertisement.

“All of Europe has been talking about that, about what happened in this final. That's a pity because it was two good teams playing a good game of football with everything that every fan wants in a game. With the quality, with the intensity, with the will, with the relentlessness, with everything inside.

“There's been much more talk about the game-decisive moment. So that's a pity for Scottish football. It's hard because you feel that the rules of the game are not followed. There's a lot of times a grey area in decision-making. In this time, it was totally no grey area. That's been discussed by everybody and there's nobody in the world who has another view on that.”