Brendan Rodgers maintained his Celtic side were deserved winners of the Premier Sports Cup despite an admission by referees chief Willie Collum that Rangers should have been awarded a penalty in extra-time.
Last Sunday’s exhilarating final, which the Hoops won on penalties after a 3-3 draw, has led to a fallout over the non-award of a spot-kick for the Gers after pictures showed that Hoops defender Liam Scales tugged Vaclav Cerny in the box.
Rangers, who were instead given a free-kick, were left outraged by the decision and Scottish Football Association head of referees Collum subsequently said on Thursday that a penalty should have been awarded and that the VAR team were “not forensic enough in the analysis”.
Rodgers claimed he could see why the officials did not give a penalty, but he insisted his team merited their victory regardless.
“I just think there will be issues around [VAR] and there always will be,” said the Hoops boss. “I think we all recognise that it’s still ultimately a human decision. I think it’s also worth pointing out the human side as well for the officials.
“I think it all gets lost and all of that but there’s a human element to it as well that we’ve got to think about with the guys. We all know I will make mistakes, everyone will make mistakes.
“You can see actually in the incident why they came to the decision because the early foul wasn’t a penalty. The contact, then the pull, still not on the line. The argument is it’s continued on and gone into the box and obviously Willie and the guys who specialise in refereeing have come out and said it’s a penalty. But you can see why the officials didn’t give it.
“There is a narrative on all of these games whether it’s penalties or a sending-off. So this was the narrative for this one. For me, I’m only worried about winning and we won the game.
“We deserved to win the game because we dealt with the pressure really well and we’ll move on to the next trophy.”
Rodgers pointed that his side had also been on the wrong side of incorrect decisions this year – specifically a penalty awarded to Hearts in March and a Daizen Maeda goal ruled out for handball against Motherwell in October – but he welcomed Collum’s efforts to be transparent over errors.
“I think that Willie, where he’s trying to take it and to be transparent and everything else, is only good because there’s lots of talk for years that there’s not been that,” he said. “So he’s coming out and he’s trying to be open and honest and hopefully helpful to the staff.
“But there will always be that [imperfection in decision-making] because it’s still down to interpretation. We’ve got good officials up here. They’re doing their very, very best. Some of them aren’t full-time. That’s the reality.
“But they’re still giving everything to make the best decisions and they won’t always be the right decisions. The Maeda case, the Hearts game, one of the games that we have lost. That was cleared up afterwards. That was a penalty that we should have not had [against]. But yeah, these things happen.”