VAR did not intervene despite Celtic protests over a foul in the build-up to Bayern Munich's last-gasp equaliser at the Allianz Arena.
The German Bundesliga side advanced to the last 16 of the Champions League after Alphonso Davies bundled home in the 94th minute to claim a 1-1 draw.
The score draw saw Bayern win the two-legged tie 3-2 on aggregate after their victory in Glasgow last week.
That's a foul on Maeda all day long!!!! pic.twitter.com/AKV4UPMvmP
— SweetIrishGhirl (@Newrygal1) February 18, 2025
However, there has been outrage over a possible foul on Daizen Maeda 45 seconds before Bayern Munich scored the decisive goal.
The Japanese winger fell to the ground after Upamecano stretched out his arm to stop the Celtic player from applying pressure.
Maeda would not have impacted play had he not collided with Upamecano but there was clear contact as Bayern looked to recycle play in stoppage time.
The Celtic winger clutched his face on the turf after the incident before being hauled back to his feet by the Bayern Munich defender.
Commentator Jon Champion said: "Maeda has gone down after a coming together with Upamecano.
"He has been dragged back to his feet by the French defender. Meanwhile, play goes on."
Referee Benoit Bastien waved play on after initially beginning to walk towards Maeda as Bayern drove forward in search of a crucial goal.
All goals in the Champions League are checked by VAR, however, it is likely that the incident did not fall within the attacking phase of play for the goal.
VAR officials communicate clear passages of play with attacking phases of play chopped up so incidents long before a goal do not lead to games being hauled back to a foul minutes earlier.
On the Scottish FA VAR review show, it has been evidenced that officials will reset the attacking phase of play fairly regularly even if rules state the APP can go back to when the ball was won back.
IFAB laws state: "For decisions/incidents relating to goals, penalty/no penalty and red cards for denying an obvious goal-scoring opportunity (DOGSO), it may be necessary to review the attacking phase of play which led directly to the decision/incident; this may include how the attacking team gained possession of the ball in open play."
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While not clear, it would be of little surprise if the attacking phase of play was reset between the time Maeda was felled and Davies bundling home.
It may be the case that the APP was reset as Leroy Sane collected the ball on the right flank ahead of Michael Olise's cross to Thomas Muller which resulted in the goal.
Equally, VAR is only instructed to interfere on "clear and obvious" or "serious missed incidents".
Going by this, VAR did not deem the potential foul on Maeda as a clear or major missed incident, with no grounds to overturn the decision to play on by Bastien.
IFAB laws clearly state referees cannot give "no decision" which could lead to "weak/indecisive" officiating and "too many reviews". Therefore, for VAR to intervene it would have to view the Maeda flashpoint as a glaring error and have sufficient evidence to go against Bastien's call.
VAR officials check TV camera footage for possible red cards, however, as no review was indicated, it can be safely assumed that there was no thought by the VAR that the incident was violent conduct.
IFAB rules do allow for VAR officials to call for a review after play has stopped and restarted in the case of "mistaken identity or for a potential sending-off offence relating to violent conduct, spitting, biting or extremely offensive, insulting and/or abusive action(s)". The incident did not fall under any of the relevant matters, according to the VAR.
There is no mention of protocol for VAR to get involved over a possible head knock.
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Celtic captain Callum McGregor refused to dwell on the possible foul, as he said: "We don't really want to use things like that as an excuse.
"The boys gave an unbelievable effort and I want to focus on that because the performance was outstanding.
"To come away from home and play like that...it's a real, real sore one but I think we can be proud of ourselves."
"That's a little bit of probably our inexperience at this level," said Rodgers of the incident.
"Upamecano was clever. He picks Maeda up because if he stays down and it was a knock on the head, I felt the referee should have gave the free kick anyway or certainly stopped the game.
"Maybe a more experienced player or team might have stayed down and then the referee has to stop the game. But he didn't.
"He played on and then eventually, obviously, they get the goal. So, yeah, we were disappointed that we obviously didn't get that in the build-up."
