Celtic: Rodgers ready to defend himself’ vigorously’ following SFA charge

Celtic manager Brendan Rodgers has no regrets over his criticism of officials and will defend himself “vigorously” after being charged by the Scottish FA.

VAR intervention led to Yang Hyun-jun’s yellow being upgraded to red and Tomoki Iwata later conceding a penalty.

“No, not at all,” said Rodgers, when asked if he regretted his remarks.

“My job is to defend the team, defend the club and that’s what we will do in this case.

“We will defend it vigorously and when the date comes we will go from there. I will sit down with the club and the lawyers and we will look at it from there.”

Rodgers faces a Scottish FA hearing on 28 March and Celtic this week had their appeal against Yang’s dismissal rejected by the governing body.

The winger had been penalised for a high boot on Hearts’ Alex Cochrane, with referee Don Robertson deeming it a red-card offence after being advised to check the monitor.

“We had a report back to that the studs and boot was in the face of the player, which clearly a couple of days later even when we get that report and it says that, it’s clearly not the case when you watch it,” added Rodgers.

“I have seen incidents worse than that, and I thought the on-field decision was correct, a yellow card.”

Abada departure ‘desperately sad’

Rodgers also discussed Liel Abada’s departure from the club. The Israel winger has joined Major League Soccer club Charlotte while admitting “leaving Celtic wasn’t in my plans”.

Rodgers recently said Abada was not ready to play amid the ongoing conflict in Gaza, with some Celtic fans having shown support for Palestine and the 22-year-old having come under pressure in his homeland to leave the Scottish champions.

“It’s desperately sad, the whole situation,” Rodgers said. “Fantastic young player.

“Through no fault of his own or the club’s, he has had to leave to take his career elsewhere.

“I spoke to Liel on Monday, I had him round the house and I knew he was probably going to be travelling the next morning.

“I really, really was looking forward to working with him over a period of time, see if we could improve his game and develop his game. We wish all the very best now over in America.”