Rangers were furious at the decision to award Motherwell’s opening goal during their Scottish Premiership clash at Fir Park on Sunday.
That’s because the ball appeared to hit the arm of Apostolos Stamatelopoulos in the build up before the Australian striker powered his effort beyond Jack Butland. However, the VAR team gave referee Kevin Clancy the all clear to allow the goal to stand.
But according to a Scottish FA insider, the correct outcome was made as his arms are deemed to be against the body and in a natural position.
IFAB rules state that the goal could only be ruled out if the player had scored directly after the ball made contact with his arm.
Therefore the VAR officials appeared to conclude that the play had progressed sufficiently for the incident to be deemed not immediate. Had the incident taken place within the penalty area, the goal would have likely been disallowed without question.
