Michael Stewart insists the penalty awarded to Rangers during this afternoon's derby encounter with Celtic was 'beyond belief'.

The former Hibernian and Hearts midfielder took to social media this afternoon to brand the officiating in the game as 'disgraceful'.

In his post on X, the pundit failed to pinpoint certain examples behind his outburst at John Beaton as the on-field referee, and Nick Walsh on VAR.

However, listening back to his views while appearing on BBC's Sportsound during the game, Stewart clearly could not believe that Beaton's original decision to book Fabio Silva for diving was overturned.

He was adamant that Alistair Johnston, who challenged the on-loan Wolves player, got the ball before the man.

He said: "In this instance, you can see quite clearly that Alistair Johnston gets the ball, wins it. And he goes to the deck far too easily. It's not a penalty kick, he wins the ball.

"I don't know what VAR are looking at, you can see it in real-time. The ball flicks up, Alistair Johnston has won the ball. There's no point in looking at that (replay), you have to look at winning of the ball.

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"They're looking at an incident after the ball has been won. Yes there's a coming together but he's won the ball.

"Oh this is beyond belief, he's gonna give a penalty kick here. There you go, wins the ball. You can see it in real-time.

"There is no justification, he wins the ball. There's a coming together, this happens all the time in football, you can see it in real-time. There's no foul to be given."

His social media post earlier today read: "The officiating is embarrassing our game. They’ve impacted the result in the biggest game of the season. Disgraceful."