Drunk VAR Officials Arrested Before Rangers Match

No, not for a dodgy handball decision—as supporters of many clubs in Scotland would hope—but rather, well, for being drunk and disorderly. Thankfully, BEFORE the match and not during.

As reported by Euronews (our English is only slightly better than our Polish), Bartosz Frankowski and Tomasz Musial were arrested in the early hours of the morning on Tuesday after allegedly stealing a road sign in Lublin, Poland.

Too Drunk For Duty

The officials were scheduled to oversee the Champions League third qualifying round match involving Phillippe Clement’s side that night. Specifically, Frankowski was to be the lead VAR, with Musial as assistant—however, both were, naturally, replaced.

Polish police allege the duo were stopped at 1.43 am Tuesday after carrying a road sign down the street while intoxicated. After registering 1.5 blood-alcohol content, they were taken to a sobering-up center (what some consider Ibrox these days).

Anyway, fellow Poles Tomasz Kwiatkowski and Pawel Malec served as stand-in VAR and VAR assistant for the fixture, which Rangers drew 1-1, thanks to a second-half stoppage-time goal by Cyriel Dessers.

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Rangers also drew 0-0 away to Hearts in their opening fixture of the Premiership season on Saturday. Immediately after the match, Hearts manager Steven Naismith claimed his side deserved a penalty for an apparent Connor Barron handball toward the end of the first half, but he later said the matchday officials got it right. No word on whether they passed a sobriety test prior to the fixture.

“I know the headlines will all be ‘Rangers have dropped points’, but I think we should have won the game,” Naismith also told the press.

In fact, the headlines have been about the “dropped points,” and that ’Gers already trail rivals Celtic after matchday one. But it’s a long season. Plenty of time for more twists and turns, like the one in Poland the other night.