Former Scotland midfielder Michael Stewart has blasted the VAR system after a chaotic case of mistaken identity overshadowed the Dundee derby, calling the whole situation “absolute madness”.
The incident centred on a yellow card shown by referee David Dickinson during the heated local clash, with the wrong Dundee player initially booked before officials scrambled to correct the error. The u-turn left players, fans and pundits scratching their heads in disbelief.
Stewart, never one to hold back, went straight for the jugular in his assessment of how the situation was handled. The BBC Scotland pundit argued that moments like this do serious damage to confidence in the officiating process, and that the confusion surrounding something as basic as identifying the correct player is simply not good enough at this level of the game.
“It is absolute madness,” Stewart said, making clear he had little patience for the explanation offered by those defending the officials. For a system that was brought in specifically to correct human error, finding itself at the centre of an identity mix-up is about as bad as it gets.
The Dundee derby is already one of the more ferocious fixtures in the Scottish Premiership calendar, with both the Dark Blues and their city rivals producing an atmosphere that puts plenty of pressure on match officials from the first whistle. Adding a VAR controversy into that mix only cranks up the tension further.
What made this particular episode so frustrating for many watching was the sense that technology should have made getting the basics right easier, not harder. Identifying which player committed a foul is pretty much the minimum requirement, and the fact that a review process still managed to get that wrong left Stewart and others genuinely baffled.
The pundit has form for calling out what he sees as poor standards in Scottish officiating, and this latest flashpoint gave him plenty of fresh ammunition. His comments quickly gained traction among supporters on both sides of the Dundee divide, with many agreeing that the whole episode reflected badly on how VAR is being implemented in Scotland.
Since its introduction to the Scottish Premiership, VAR has been a source of near-constant debate. Supporters were promised greater accuracy and fewer game-changing mistakes. What they have got instead, at least in the eyes of critics like Stewart, is a system that occasionally creates new problems rather than solving old ones.
The mistaken identity u-turn will now likely feature in the ongoing conversation about whether Scottish football has the infrastructure and training in place to make VAR work properly. Getting the technology is one thing. Using it effectively is another matter entirely.
For Dundee, the incident added an unwanted layer of drama to what is always a fiercely contested occasion. Both clubs will be hoping that the next derby is remembered for the football rather than another refereeing controversy.
Honestly VAR was supposed to fix this sort of mess not make it worse. Scottish football just can’t catch a break can it. Absolute shambles from start to finish and Stewart is completely right to be furious about it.