Rangers have contested the decision of referee Willie Collum not to penalize Alistair Johnston for a handball after listening to the VAR audio and have asserted that no mention of offside was made by the officials.

The Ibrox club convened with the SFA after criticizing the officials for their delayed sharing of the audio, which only became available four days after the derby game against Celtic. Rangers demanded to understand the reasoning behind the decision not to award a penalty after an incident involving Nick Walsh, the on-field referee, and VAR Collum.

In a prior statement, Rangers expressed “concerns about the motivations” of the governing body in sharing a still image depicting Abdallah Sima as offside before the challenge on Johnston, along with the Canadian’s apparent handball. Former referee Bobby Madden explained on social media that if Collum had deemed a penalty necessary, the game would have recommenced with an offside free-kick, rather than a goal kick for Celtic.

Rangers were “astonished” by this assessment and have urged the SFA to make the audio public and provide clarification regarding the process through which Walsh and Collum arrived at their decision. A club spokesperson stated, “Rangers FC today met with Scottish FA officials to discuss the VAR handball call and subsequent miscommunications from Saturday’s Old Firm match. From the meeting, there was an overriding consensus the VAR decision of no handball was incorrect.

“Having listened to the audio, there is no mention of a potential offside at the time of the handball decision. Rangers is also deeply concerned at the haste at which the erroneous no handball call was made.

Rangers has appealed to the Scottish FA to release the audio and explain this decision, and future contentious decisions involving all clubs, to the public, as would be common practice in England for such a decision.

“The club has made a number of specific requests that it hopes the Scottish FA will respond to in order to improve matters going forward.”