Stewart Regan faces the first test of the new streamlined SFA disciplinary policy tomorrow when they decide whether to punish Steven Naismith for the elbowing incident with Austin McCann during the Dunfermline v Rangers match on Saturday.
Sky Sports covered the incident extensively as the Rangers player recklessly swung an elbow towards McCann with the defender taking the blow on his lip.
Television coverage shows referee Iain Brines in line with the incident but not for the first time he missed the contact with Naismith escaping unpunished at the time.
During the summer the SFA brought in a new streamlined disciplinary system that aims to deal with issues promptly unlike last season’s pantomime which saw issues drag on for months and the SFA rule book torn to shreds by clubs.
Regan virtually staked his position on new legislation drafted by the McLeish Report and was delighted to get the outdated committee structure binned allowing one committee to look after all disciplinary matters.
After the SFA AGM in June Regan said: “There were problems with the disciplinary system, but I didn’t find them embarrassing because I think it was a signal that we had to change and that there were flaws in the process.
“That led to a deeper review and, as the season went on, there were various issues where our disciplinary procedures just didn’t stand up to legal scrutiny.
“Obviously that was a great opportunity to say: “There you go, we have to get this right, we can’t go on like this. It’s a great feeling to get unanimous backing from the members.
“All the challenges we have faced helped, absolutely it helped. As daft as it sounds, a lot of the big issues we have faced in the game over the last eight months helped me to almost put a mirror up to Scottish.
After all the talking the SFA will be expected to put their new processes into action tomorrow.
A year ago Regan took over as chief executive of the SFA and found himself delivering a suspension to Allan McGregor inbetween international matches with Lithuania and Liechtenstein.
Naismith will be announced in Craig Levein’s international squad for the double header with Lichtenstein and Spain at the same time as he becomes the first ‘victim’ of the SFA’s new disciplinary system.
If the Rangers player is punished it would only be fair if the SFA announce any punishment for Brines who could have dealt with the incident at the time and saved the SFA the embarrassment of publicly punishing one of their own players.
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Brines was looking right at it, he slightly raises an arm and changes the direction of his feet as soon as Naismith throws the elbow then carries on like nothing happened, his body language shows clearly he was started reacting then thought better of it, very telling footage.
I honestly don’t see how anyone could disagree it was intentional, he will get off with it though. McCann the player elbowed is coming out saying he accepts it was accident which is clearly a lie, he may just be being the bigger man and not have a leaning towards Rangers but i doubt he would have been so gracious if he was nursing a broken jaw and eating through a straw!
It,s another case of the Not prov-en verdict.
Brines sending a Rangers player off no Chance.
This is a Scottish referee not a European ref FFS.
They,ll put it down to an HONEST MISTAKE.
Balde was hauled up in front of the review panel for less v Hibs.
Given that the SFA are going to be neutral from this year, we can be confident that the matter will be dealt with appropriately 🙂
Next questions is, are they neutral now and have they started to apply the same rules to all member clubs ? We will find out tomorrow
It doesn’t matter what changes and overhauling has been done within the SFA, nothing will change, it is still run by the same people, look at the Lennon assault verdict and bougherra grabbing a referee?
They were incidents caught on film and it didn’t matter how matter of fact the evidence was, it comes down to the people who review it and they won’t rule on it fairly because they won’t want to and won’t have to.
Naismith stamped on Fraser Forster in the Ibrox game too and it could be an indication that he is simply a violent player………….
Then he’s nearly in tears when another player looks at him the wrong way, he is a fragal of a man.