Former top FIFA ref Marius Avram reckons Italian whistler Marco di Bello made two mistakes when he disallowed Steaua Bucharest's opening strike for a foul on Rangers keeper Jack Butland.

Rangers nearly got off to the worst possible start in their Europa League tie when the English keeper was caught on the ball by Steaua star David Miculescu, who then tapped it into the empty net after just two minutes of the game.

But di Bello - who booked seven players at Ibrox - immediately blew for a foul so VAR couldn't check the incident and the goal was disallowed with Rangers going on to romp to a 4-0 success.

And Romanian ex-World Cup ref Avram reckons the ref made two huge mistakes.

He pointed out: "He made two errors in the same phase of play.

"It's clearly not a foul.

"And he cancelled the possibility of VAR analysis by blowing the whistle before the ball went into the goal.

"VAR protocol says you have to delay the whistle.

"So it was a double mistake.

"If they had followed the VAR protocol and delayed the whistle, I'm certain the decision would have been overturned and the goal would have rightly stood."