Nadir Ciftci will face a preliminary hearing on July 20 into allegations that he bit an opponent.
The new Celtic striker will appear before the SFA at Hampden in-between the Champions League qualifiers against Stjarnan of Iceland for the incident with Jim McAlister in his final match as a Dundee United player.
It took the SFA over three weeks to call the hearing but shortly after the match Dundee United issued a statement defending the striker.
It read: “Dundee United FC are fully supportive of Nadir Ciftci in relation to allegations reportedly made against him by a Dundee player in the 3-0 derby win on Sunday at Tannadice.
“The club has interviewed Nadir today as the accusation levelled against him is very serious and Dundee United would not condone such behaviour.
“The player is both surprised and upset by the accusation and, on discussing the matter in detail, it is clear to us that the player has not been involved in any such incident. In fact we commend Nadir for his tolerance on the field given some quite severe physical and totally unacceptable verbal provocation.”
Rather than issue Ciftci with a retrospective suspension the issue was treated as ‘alleged exceptional misconduct’ by SFA Compliance Offer Tony McGlennan.
That charge opens up a variety of punishments and suspensions which would only apply in domestic fixtures.
Last season Alexsandar Tonev was given a ten match suspension ‘on the balance of probability’ for an alleged racist comment at Aberdeen’s Shay Logan, if the SFA decide to use that level of evidence again Ciftci’s Celtic career could be be put on hold.
