Motherwell boss Stuart Kettlewell has revealed that Willie Collum admitted to two VAR mistakes in a conversation between the pair on Monday.
Their private chat came two days after Motherwell’s thrilling 4-3 victory over Dundee United that threw up a number of flashpoints including two big penalty calls.
One was the penalty awarded to United when Liam Gordon was penalised for bringing down Louis Moult, and the other an incident where Kettlewell felt Motherwell should have been given a spot-kick but were denied.
Kettlewell got on the phone to Collum to address the calls and revealed at his pre-Kilmarnock press conference that the SFA’s head of refereeing agreed with the Steelmen boss over the United penalty, as well as admitting Motherwell should have been given a spot-kick.
Kettlewell and Collum’s conversation
Kettlewell said: “I had a really good conversation with Willie on Monday. A short conversation, it was a question from my side of things. There were probably three main incidents in our game.
“There was a question mark over our fourth goal on whether it hit Apostollos’ arm or not – the pictures that I’ve seen, it looks as if it hits him on his shirt line, which is the defining factor.
“Then there was the penalty for Dundee United that makes it 1-1, and the penalty I believe that we should have had right on the stroke of half-time, which would have given us the opportunity to make the game 4-1. I think we all know the relevance and significance of that.
“It was a good conversation. I’d said to Willie that it should stay between us. But the simple outcome was that we saw the incident the same way.
“We saw all the incidents the same way. Everyone knows our feeling as a football club is that it was as clear a penalty as you were going to see.”
VAR hasn’t been ‘great’ recently
Kettlewell was asked on how he thinks VAR has progressed since first being introduced to Scottish football in 2022.
He replied: “I thought we started really, really well. I thought a large number of the decisions were pretty much correct. I thought we were making real strides on that front.
“From my personal point of view, I don’t think that’s been great of late because I’ve mentioned three major incidents in games that could have a defining factor in what the outcome of the game is.
“I don’t feel it’s been as consistent as it was at the start of the season. But I need to go on record and say the transparency and communication has dramatically improved.”