Blogs

"What Have They Seen?" - Celtic Fans Furious Over Latest Referee Clanger

VAR should have been the saving grace of refereeing in the UK and beyond.

Heavily engrossed in a time rife with manual errors made by our match officials in games all over the nation, the introduction of video footage led many fans to believe that refereeing mistakes would surely become a thing of the past.

However, that has certainly not been the case, as bemoaned quite understandably by Celtic fans last night. Whilst trailing 1-0 at home to Braga in a Europa League clash on Thursday evening, Kelechi Iheanacho stole in behind and powered home a delightful finish to equalise, only for the VAR to disallow the goal for handball. Quite rightly, this is being regarded by many as the "worst VAR decision of all time".

Celtic Ouraged At VAR Clown Show

Well, we'll start by saying you should see the goal for yourself...

Kelechi Iheanacho looked to have gotten Celtic back into the game... but VAR rules out his strike for handball ❌

📺 @tntsports & @discoveryplusUK pic.twitter.com/kTLpdakAqE
— Football on TNT Sports (@footballontnt) October 2, 2025

Didn't see anything wrong with it? No, we didn't either. Neither did any player on the pitch, fan in the stands, pundit in the studios or neutral watching at home. It's clear as day - the ball ricochets up, off Iheanacho's head and back down to feet, before he preceded with what was a brilliant finish and a massive goal in the tie.

The only people on the whole planet who DID see something wrong with the goal, sadly, were the officials in charge of deciding what can and cannot stand.

No alternative camera angles provided. No communication, at the moment, from the referees or UEFA. No explanation as to what they possibly could have seen to disallow the goal. It genuinely stands to reason by going down as the worst VAR moment we have seen since it's continental induction some years back.

VAR's Ugly Head Rears and Ruins

The Iheanacho goal that never was has laid bare yet more of the inadequacies displayed by VAR since its inception and roll-out years back.

The one thing it was brought in to do was to dismantle any chance of referee errors being a thing. Sure, it would come at the cost of a bit of a delay in the game from time to time, but that would be worth it to eliminate the clear and obvious errors made by officials beforehand.

However, when VAR gets it wrong, it is a hundred times worse than an on-field mistake by the referee in charge of the game. When that happens, there can be plenty of grievance over the decision, but at least there is the slight respite of it being a genuine, human error that came from a decision needing to be made in the blink of an eye.

But when you have every camera angle in the world (and seemingly all the time in the world too) available at your disposal to go through any incident on the field, then mistakes are inexcusable. What the team of officials saw in that Iheanacho goal, we have no idea.

'It was never a handball... If that goal stays, then we will win the game 100%'

Sebastian Tounekti reacts to Kelechi Iheanacho's disallowed goal after Celtic's 2-0 Europa League defeat to Sporting Braga ⤵️#BBCFootball pic.twitter.com/JzBQog4I9C
— BBC Sport Scotland (@BBCSportScot) October 2, 2025

And, as many claim constantly, it can spoil the occasion of a match for players and fans alike. That goal for Celtic was a perfectly good finish that should have stood. So why bother celebrating the next one, knowing VAR can just chalk it off despite doing absolutely nothing wrong? Why bother getting excited about an upcoming match, knowing three referees in a room somewhere could ruin the entire thing, despite having every possible tool available to them to do the opposite?

Celtic fans have every single right to feel aggrieved by the officiating last night. As some have said, which we will agree with - that was VAR at it's absolute worst.

The goal would have been an equaliser in the 54th-minute for Celtic, after Ricardo Horta had given away side Braga the lead in the 20th minute. The goal should have been a turning point for a Celtic side who were on top at that stage of the game, but they were condemned to defeat after Gabriel Martinez came off the bench to seal it for the Portuguese visitors.