The SFA will take no action against the club from Ibrox after they deliberately ignored testing regulations to give NINE untested players match fitness in a friendly against Dundee United.
More than a week after being tested, and following a return flight to France, Jordan Jones, Greg Docherty, Young McCrorie, Calvin Bassey and Greg Stewart were used in the Murray Park friendly match.
The Joint Response Group for Scottish football had issued very clear guidelines about the return to training with testing requirements reduced from twice a week to just once.
Clubs were in no doubt about the importance of testing, four days before the Murray Park match Hibs had been forced to cancel a game against Ross County because their test results hadn’t been returned.
The Daily Record reports:
Rangers have replied to the compliance officer describing the incident as a ‘misunderstanding of protocol’ and have upped testing to twice a week.
The SFA have accepted the explanation. A source said: “Yes, Rangers should have been well aware of the rules but in the circumstances it does seem as if there was some confusion.”
There was no ‘misunderstanding of protocol’ when the two assistant referees were denied access to Murray Park when their test results were out of date.
There was no ‘misunderstanding of protocol’ when the Ibrox friendly against Motherwell later that day was delayed two hours as test results were awaited.
As a result of the ‘misunderstanding’ every club in the Premiership has had its testing costs doubled.
EBT Co-Ordinator Andrew Dickson is a member of the SFA Congress.
