Chris Davies has told the SFA that Allan McGregor’s assault on Kris Ajer was beyond the natural aggression that you get in the British game.
Referee Willie Collum and his assistant Frank Connor both managed to miss the incident which was captured by Sky Sports as thousands of Celtic fans roared their disapproval.
McGregor got away with a similar attack on Motherwell’s Peter Hartley the previous week with the message going out from Hampden being that kicking out isn’t likely to bring any retrospective punishment.
The decision not to take action against the Scotland keeper has made the SFA a laughing stock across Europe with Davies unable to understand the logic behind the decision.
“I was surprised,” he admitted to the Evening Times. “From my point of view, I was just pleased that our player wasn’t injured in the game.
“It’s one of those and it was discussed a lot afterwards. Everybody said quite clearly what they thought about the incident.
“Generally, the aggression, physicality and intensity of the British game – and Scotland in particular – is one of it’s greatest assets but this incident wasn’t natural aggression or competing in that way. This was something isolated and different to that.
“Physicality is part of football and we would be the first people to say we want that to remain but this is a different incident we are discussing.”
Ajer was able to play on and was fit enough to join up with the Norwegian international squad for the Nations Cup qualifiers.
Yesterday the SFA rejected Aberdeen’s appeal against the red card issued to Mikey Devlin against Kilmarnock suggesting that whatever decision the referee comes up with on the day no-one inside Hampden will contradict that view.