Celtic star Kelechi Iheanacho slams ‘awful’ handball VAR decision that denied him goal against Braga as Hoops go to UEFA
KELECHI IHEANACHO has branded the decision to disallow his equaliser against Braga as AWFUL.
Celtic lost 2-0 in the Europa League but the Nigerian was left seething after being penalised for handball at Parkhead.
German ref Tobias Stieler ruled the goal out and VAR Christian Dingert didn’t advise a check – despite replays showing no infringement.
Iheanacho said: “That was an awful decision from them.
“The ball didn’t hit my hand, it hit my face.
“It was an awful decision and it changed the game.
“We could have been back in it.
“We are disappointed, I don’t know what they did there.
“The referee knows it wasn’t a handball.
“It changed the game and hopefully they can sort that out.
“It was a disappointing result and we are gutted that we lost.
“We need to do more but hopefully we can win on Sunday.
“We need to keep our heads up and focus on the weekend.”
Celtic boss Brendan Rodgers confirmed they had demanded answers from Uefa over the controversial decision.
He said: “We are still waiting to hear what the reason was and it was a pivotal moment in the game.
“For the life of me, I don’t understand why it wasn’t given.
“It wasn’t even close to being a handball and we are waiting on an explanation.
“I can’t understand why the referee isn’t asked to go and have a look at that.
“If you look at it once, twice, and I’m assuming the people in the VAR room have looked at it more than that, there’s absolutely no way it hits him there.”
Kasper Schmeichel’s howler allowed Ricardo Horta’s long-range strike to put Braga ahead, with Gabri Martinez adding a late second.
Rodgers said: “Kasper will be really disappointed with it.
“It’s a good strike and it’s obviously moved a little bit, but I haven’t spoken to him about it.”
Celtic have now failed to score in five of their first 12 games of the season – as many blanks as they hit in 57 matches last term.
Rodgers said: “Whatever it is, I need to find the solution to it.
“There’s been too many games now where we haven’t scored for a team that, last season, scored the most goals in the last 54 years in the club’s history.
“It’s my responsibility to find the solutions to that.
“We got into some good areas and the keeper made some good saves, but we still need to be more aggressive.
“But we are just in a moment where we can’t find the goal or get that little break you need to get one.
“Late on, when you’re chasing the game, they break and they get the second goal after we failed to clear the box.
“So, it’s definitely frustrating that we didn’t get something from the game.
“You want to win your home games but we can’t blame anyone but ourselves.
“We have Sturm Graz at home after the break and if we want to make any impact in this competition, we will have to win that game.”
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