Rangers legend Derek Johnstone is not happy with the current SFA disciplinary process, writing in his column for The Evening Times.
Another week of debate on the role of the SFA compliance officer has raged on after Gers goalkeeper Allan McGregor was suspended for two matches for a challenge on Lewis Ferguson of Aberdeen last week.
McGregor will now miss matches against St Johnstone and Kilmarnock, leaving Steven Gerrard without one of his most important players at a critical time.
The decision to ban him using retrospective action is especially galling considering Alan Power and Paul McGinn got off with worse incidents just 24 hours before Rangers’ appeal on the issue.
Johnstone isn’t happy, writing in The Evening Times:
Anyone that looks at events of the last week or so and the Scottish FA disciplinary outcomes would just laugh at us. What a shambles it has become.
We have worked hard in Scottish football to get it back in the right direction and we are throwing it away with stupidity. I don’t think many people would disagree with that.
We are letting ourselves down with absolute stupidity. The system is wrong and it is not working. It is as simple as that.
There is a huge inconsistency in how incidents are being cited and dealt it and we are back to the ‘trial by television’ scenario that has been spoken about before. It would be interesting to see how many players have been cited from each club.
The SFA have to explain why these decisions are being made.
The former Gers striker is of course right to seriously criticise the decision making of Hampden officials, with no-one seemingly able to make much sense of it.
Worst all there is absolutely no transparency about how the decisions are made, with serious questions about how it all works filling the void left by the SFA’s inability to explain their actions.
Clubs must look for change and Rangers really need to lead the way on the issue considering we are having more problems than most with video evidence and the compliance officer.