Derek McInnes insists he still isn’t happy after demanding answers from the SFA referees department over the failure of Willie Collum to check the monitor for Kilmarnock’s penalty appeal in their Viaplay Cup semi-final defeat against holders Celtic on Saturday.
The Rugby Park boss was raging after the game and is still unhappy at the incident where Giorgos Giakoumakis, who went on to score the clincher at Hampden, wrestled Joe Wright to the ground inside the box.
McInnes said the whole episode flies in the face of the reasons the technology was introduced to Scottish football – at a cost of £1.2million per season – as he admitted sympathy for the Killie fans who travelled to Glasgow on a rain-lashed night only to be denied VAR being utilised.
Ahead of the visit or Rangers to Ayrshire on Wednesday, the still seething boss said: “We don’t want to dwell on it but it has to be said it was the wrong decision. I spoke with the refereeing department and wasn’t satisfied with what I was told. For years, we as managers and clubs, supported the whole movement for VAR coming into Scottish football.
“We wanted to make a modern league, don’t get left behind and all the rest of it. We wanted to try and help the referees as such as we could. For years I’d phone Hugh Dallas, John Fleming or Crawford Allan with grievances over decisions and they’d always say that the referee only had one look at it, only one chance, or his view was blocked and if he could see it as he sees it now it would be different.
“We’ve now, as clubs have put so much outlay for VAR, have the ability to look at it again. We were deserving of someone looking at that incident again. We had 8000 fans who made the effort to go to Hampden and sit in the rain and support their team. We were deserving of someone to go and make the effort to look at VAR and check that incident. It’s a penalty kick all day long and nobody has said anything different to me.
“The incident, in a semi final stage, was exactly the type of stage we brought VAR in for. We were deceiving of someone taking the time to look at it again. If they arrived at the same conclusion that would have been more worrying but they should still have made the effort.”
READ NEXT
