Dougal admits to rare error

Referee Stuart Dougal has admitted he made a mistake by not sending off Aberdeen defender Russell Anderson against Hearts on Wednesday.

The Bank of Scotland Premier League match at Tynecastle saw the only goal of the game scored from a penalty which resulted from a deliberate handball by the Scotland defender. Anderson was only shown a yellow card, but the FIFA referee, speaking on the 'Whistleblower' section of the Scottish Football Association's website, conceded that in hindsight he should have dismissed the Pittodrie player.

He said: "When the ball was played goalward by a Hearts forward, Russell Anderson reached up and punched the ball away."

He added: "I was not expecting this to happen but when it did, I had to quickly ascertain if the ball was going directly into the goal or not.

"I also had to determine whether he had denied an opponent an obvious goalscoring opportunity.

"All of this happened within a flash but I was pretty sure that the ball was not going into the net and also believed that the covering Aberdeen defender (Alexander Diamond) would have cleared the ball under pressure from the Hearts attacker.

"Therefore, there was no obvious goalscoring opportunity. However, after seeing the incident again on television, I have to admit that the Hearts striker would probably have managed to get a header in towards the unprotected goal.

"Therefore, Anderson did deny an attacker a scoring opportunity and, on reflection, that opportunity was an obvious one so I should have issued a red card instead of the yellow."

Dougal added: "I am disappointed to have got this decision wrong and am relieved that it didn't affect the result or have other implications.

"Like others in the game, players, managers etc, referees do get decisions wrong from time to time but we try to learn from such errors and strengthen our resolve for future games."