{"id":15787,"date":"2025-04-13T06:25:20","date_gmt":"2025-04-13T06:25:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/15787\/"},"modified":"2025-04-13T06:25:20","modified_gmt":"2025-04-13T06:25:20","slug":"worrying-trend-after-var-guess-on-major-rangers-v-bilbao-controversy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/15787\/","title":{"rendered":"‘Worrying’ trend after VAR ‘guess’ on major Rangers v Bilbao controversy"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Rangers\"<\/p>\n

(Credit: TNT Sports)<\/p>\n

\"Keith <\/p>\n

Fri 11 April 2025 16:00, UK <\/p>\n

Keith Hackett has hit out at VAR following the goalless draw between Rangers and Athletic Bilbao in the first leg of their Europa League quarter final.<\/strong><\/p>\n

The former PGMOL chief and ex-FIFA official exclusively told Football Insider<\/strong> that it was a \u201cguess\u201d to penalise a deliberate handball from Dujon Sterling when any intent was dubious at best, also criticising a check for offside in the same incident after the visitors had the ball in the net.<\/p>\n

Barry Ferguson<\/a>\u2018s side took on the La Liga outfit at Ibrox on Thursday Night (10 April), in what proved to be a controversial encounter.<\/p>\n

Rangers went down to ten men after just 13 minute when Robin Propper was sent off<\/a> for denial of a goalscoring opportunity, and there would be further drama to come.<\/p>\n

\"KeithKeith Hackett has taken aim at how VAR is usedRangers concede penalty after goal ruled out<\/strong><\/p>\n

After holding out until late in the second half, the hosts\u2019 ten men looked as though they had gone behind when Alex Berenguer fired home from close range after a long ball fell his way inside the area.<\/p>\n

However, there was then a long VAR check, initially to analyse if there had been any Athletic Bilbao player offside in the build-up.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

MORE FOOTBALL INSIDER STORIES<\/p>\n

After replays showed there was not, rather than award the goal the Basque side were then given a penalty for handball against Rangers full-back Dujon Sterling<\/a>, which captain James Tavernier revealed afterwards he had been told was considered to be deliberate.<\/p>\n\nRangers last five games<\/td>\nResult<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n\nFenerbahce (H)<\/td>\nLost 2-0 (won 3-2 on penalties)<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n\nCeltic (A)<\/td>\nWon 3-2<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n\nDundee (A)<\/td>\nWon 4-3<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n\nHibernian (H)<\/td>\nLost 2-0<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n\nAthletic Bilbao (H)<\/td>\nDrew 0-0<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n

All competitions<\/p>\n

Jack Butland had been the Rangers hero in the penalty shootout win over Fenerbahce<\/a> in the last round of the competition.<\/p>\n

But after some high-profile errors, the 32-year-old had been dropped to the bench for this match, and instead it was Liam Kelly who kept out Berenguer\u2019s penalty to keep Rangers level<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Now, Hackett<\/a> has taken aim at VAR both for checking for offside in the first place, and then for awarding a penalty for handball against Sterling.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

Keith Hackett criticises VAR over penalty drama<\/strong><\/p>\n

Speaking to Football Insider<\/strong> about the decision to give a penalty against Rangers<\/a>, the former referee said:<\/p>\n

\u201cI do not see this as deliberate handball and more of a guess by the officials rather then looking for the factual evidence rather than an after though.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was surprised that a penalty kick was awarded when you look at the replays of this particular incident, you have to determine if the player has deliberately handled the ball.<\/p>\n

\u201cFor me, this is not the case. There\u2019s a natural movement of the body and the ball strikes, but it\u2019s not deliberate, wrong decision for me. Fortunately the penalty was saved.\u201c<\/p>\n

On the issue of VAR looking for problems as opposed to leaning towards giving a goal, Hackett then added: \u201cOne of the worrying trends that I see in the use of VAR is rather than finding a reason to allow a goal, we appear to be taking steps to actually strike them off.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn the game we saw a search by VAR to determine if a player was offside, the answer was no. Then the next thing was \u2018oops, we\u2019ve got handball here!\u2019<\/p>\n

\u201cWhich they did not go to initially. So looking at the replays they determined that this was a handball, and was a penalty kick.<\/p>\n

\u201cI would remind the officials to take a view that says \u2018why should we allow this goal\u2019 and not look for reasons to disallow it.<\/p>\n

\u201cFor me I have to say that finding that as a deliberate in order to award a penalty kick that was thankfully saved, is not the way to use VAR.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ahead of the second leg in Spain next week, Rangers are due to take on Aberdeen at Pittodrie in the Scottish Premiership on Sunday afternoon (13 April).<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

Related Posts<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"(Credit: TNT Sports) Fri 11 April 2025 16:00, UK Keith Hackett has hit out at VAR following the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":15788,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[1947,10747,13,2696,10748,12,5074,14],"class_list":{"0":"post-15787","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-news","8":"tag-athletic-bilbao","9":"tag-dujon-sterling","10":"tag-headlines","11":"tag-keith-hackett","12":"tag-liam-kelly","13":"tag-news","14":"tag-rangers","15":"tag-top-stories"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114329231479692303","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15787","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15787"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15787\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/15788"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15787"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15787"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15787"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}