Former referee Bobby Madden has called out the "secret" handball rule change after incidents in the Scottish Premiership this weekend.

Rangers first avoided punishment for an alleged handball by Connor Barron in their goalless draw against Hearts.

The new Ibrox signing had the ball deflect off his hand in the box but the incident was waved away with no VAR review advised.

Similarly, Dundee's Luke Graham was not penalised when the ball appeared to strike him on the arm in the box as he attempted to clear a cross at Tannadice.

Incidents similar to both at the weekend were punished last season but the handball rule appears to have changed this season after Willie Collum vowed to improve decisions this term.

Madden shared his thoughts on the matter on Instagram as he insisted UEFA have "finally seen sense" to relax the handball criteria.

Sharing a clip of the Dundee United vs Dundee incident, he wrote: "UEFA have finally seen sense and 'relaxed' the handball criteria.

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"SFA have to follow suit and apply new criteria. 

"Unfortunately, that appears to be a secret and we will have to wait for their transparent press release this week to find out if this is a penalty or not."

The former top-flight referee then shared a clip of the potential Barron handball in the draw between Rangers and Hearts.

New Scottish FA head of refereeing Collum previously confirmed there would be fewer VAR interventions over handball as he insisted a football understanding would be applied on handball decisions.

Collum explained: "We know last season there was a lot of debate, a lot of controversy in the media and by spectators on handball.

"We have tried to re-align our handball interpretation more in line with a football expectation and football understanding but with the support of the referees and also the support of the clubs and the coaches.

"We think we are in a better place with that and there will be a better approach taken to not only handball but the intervention of VAR round about handball.

He added: "We want to make that much more related to football expectation.

"There won't be as many interventions for handball."