SFA VAR panel admit Celtic should have had a penalty against Motherwell as Maeda mistake made official

Daizen Maeda and Celtic SHOULD have been awarded a penalty at Motherwell - but the decision was NOT unanimous.

The KMI Panel outcomes have released their latest decisions from last weekend's top flight fixtures and after a 'lengthy' discussion over the incident involving the Hoops attacker and Stephen O'Donnell, they have came to the majority decision that a spot-kick should have been handed to Brendan Rodgers' men as the incident happened BEFORE the handball. They note that the goal was correctly ruled out for the offence but match official David Dickinson should have blown his whistle for a foul.

They then state that Alan Muir on VAR and his assistant Gary Hilland should have sent the whistler to the monitor for a second look after he initially decided to opt against awarding Celtic a penalty for the incident.

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First looking at the flashpoint in terms of a goal, the SFA team noted: "The panel deemed this to be a correct intervention for a handball which led directly to a goal. The panel agreed this is a difficult incident for the Referee to identify, however also agreed that the Assistant Referee should have identified this offense on-field."

It continues: "After a lengthy discussion on the incident, the majority (4:1) of the panel deemed this should have firstly been identified as a foul by the on-field Referee and an on-field review should have been recommended by the VAR when the penalty was not awarded.

"As the goal was correctly ruled out for handball, the majority of the panel (4:1) felt the penalty-kick should have been awarded as this offence occurred before the handball. One panel member felt the decision not to award the penalty-kick was correct and that no intervention was required.

"The panel also noted that, in line with VAR protocol, VAR could not advise on any sanction for the offending player during a potential OFR, which must be decided by the on-field referee."

Elsewhere, Joe Wright was originally handed his marching orders in Dingwall against Ross County - but after a VAR intevention, it was downgraded to a yellow. The SFA state that the original red card shown was incorrect, and noted the referee may have been incorrectly advised the assistant referee. But they fully backed the decision to overturn the red following an on-field review.

At Pittodrie, Aberdeen were awarded a last gasp penalty in their win over Dundee United but the decision was overturned. They say it was a good use of VAR as the offside was very close to call. They do state however that a penalty would have been the correct outcome had the player not been offside.

Meanwhile, the five man panel were in agreement that Connor Barron was correctly not red carded at Ibrox. A flashpoint involving the midfielder and Toyosi Olusanya was debated by pundits and former officials like Bobby Madden in the wake of Rangers' victory over St Mirren.

Madden rejected the notion the midfielder should have been sent off for the incident with the SFA team in agreement with him and the match official Calum Scott. They noted: "The panel agreed the incident shouldn't have resulted in a red card, however did agree that a caution for the offending player could be supported."

Read all the panel outcomes from the October 26 and 27 fixtures HERE.