Why Willie Collum was wrong to give Aberdeen a penalty
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Collum’s positioning is spot on. He reacts quickly to the flicked ball over the top - quicker than the Kilmarnock defence, in fact - immediately breaking into a run to get a closer look while the ball is in the air.
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Hide AdThe problem he has, and what contributes to him getting the decision wrong, is that Scott Boyd crosses his sight-line just at the moment Maddison makes contact with MacDonald. You get a better look at it in Picture One (above), where we’ve paused the action in two instances: when Maddison makes contact with MacDonald, and when MacDonald pulls at Maddison. In the first picture, it’s possible Collum can see around Boyd’s right, which would give him a look at Maddison, but it’s impossible here for him to see the whole coming together. He should maybe be trying to lean around Boyd, but it happens very quickly. When MacDonald goes down and Maddison starts to move after the ball, Boyd’s positioning has changed and Collum gets a clear view of MacDonald tugging at the Aberdeen attacker.
While that is the reason, it’s not an excuse. It’s a poor decision. Even though he is unsighted, it’s surprising that he didn’t give the foul for Maddison hitting MacDonald. First of all, the assistant seems to have a perfect view of that, and should be providing some help as there don’t appear to be any players in the way. Even if the assistant somehow missed it, we can only wonder what Collum thinks happened in the second where Boyd got in his way. He sees the ball sailing towards MacDonald, with Maddison bearing down on him, and then the next thing he sees is MacDonald on the deck with Maddison on top of him, and the ball away to the side. There is no plausible alternative turn of events which could have caused that.
Though he should have collected the ball first time, is harsh on the Kilmarnock goalkeeper, who is fouled. It’s unintentional from Maddison, but to protect himself he extends both hands on to MacDonald, and may even catch him with his knees as well. It’s not a massive push. He lifts his arms off again as quickly as possible, but he does use both hands and that, combined with the momentum of his run, forces MacDonald down to the ground. Onlookers have said he “clattered” into the goalkeeper, something MacDonald reiterated. This not quite the case, Maddison does all he can to minimise the contact between the two, but it’s still enough to warrant a foul.
The picture at the top of the article shows the contact MacDonald makes on Maddison. He clearly pulls at the Dons midfielder. It definitely would be a penalty if there wasn’t a foul on the goalkeeper.
• Craig Anderson is a former fully qualified referee. He is also the man behind SPLStats on Twitter.
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