6 elite referees back up Rangers no goal as Bobby Madden vindicated over his stance on Raskin 'shove'

Madden and others reckon John Beaton was spot on to disallow Sima's goal for a Nico Raskin push on Joe Hart.

Bobby Madden reckons Abdallah Sima's Rangers goal in the Scottish Cup Final was rightly ruled out, and has the elite back up to prove it.

The Senegalese bundled home shortly before the hour mark and thought he'd given the Gers a priceless lead in the Hampden showdown against Celtic. But VAR intervened and asked ref Nick Walsh to have another look at a push by Nico Raskin on keeper Joe Hart. The Celts stopper got caught under the ball, which flew over his head and allowed Sima a tap in.

But the Belgian was fairly obvious in putting two hands on Hart's back, and that led John Beaton to suggest Walsh double check over ruling the goal out. And Madden believes his former colleague was spot on, despite an apparently harder shove from Liam Scales not being penalised with a free-kick in the first half. Madden said: "This goal is correctly disallowed following and on field review. With so much going on at corners these offences are almost impossible to detect live by match officials, and this is exactly why VAR was introduced.

"There is a lot of discussion around a stronger push not being awarded earlier in game for an incident just outside the penalty area. It’s not been detected on the field of play, had it been inside the penalty area VAR would certainly have got involved. That incident doesn’t mean you then can’t punish this quite obvious push, two wrongs don’t make a right. "You simply can’t be behind the goalkeeper and push them as they jump to play the ball. You can debate all day whether you think the goalkeeper would have played the ball, he has only missed it by a matter of centimetres. What you can’t debate is that the push has an impact on the goalkeeper, and that can’t be ignored by the VAR when they have such a clear image."

And Madden isn't simply ploughing a lone furrow. He claims he's shown the incident to several top refs from across the continent, and every one came to the same conclusion.

"A lot of questions about Raskin being held before the push on Hart," he added. "Come on. There is “holding” of that nature at almost every set piece. I’m sure if you studied that incident there would be multiple offences. You can only punish offences that clearly impact an opponent who is challenging for the ball.

"I don’t think the first contact is a foul but will also say the ball wasn’t in play so couldn’t be punished. After the push there is further which is irrelevant and not enough for a foul anyway. I’ve shown that video to six elite European referees and they all say foul on goalkeeper and goal should be disallowed."