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The SFA’s Disciplinary Review System Is A Joke That No-One Finds Funny Except Sevco.

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Yesterday and the day before I took a 48 hiatus from blogging, in part because I had family things to do, in part because I had a new PC to transfer all my stuff to and in part because this gets wearisome at times and I need to get myself away from it.

During Monday, I was not surprised at the story that came out of the SFA on Carlos Pena; I would have been more surprised had the SFA Discipline committee actually grown a set and decided there was a case to answer. And of course, there was a case to answer.

Anyone who watched that game could see Pena was at it from the word go.

The yellow card he received could easily have been a red. Only Dallas Jnr knows how he avoided a second one; at one point I said to my old man that Pena looking like someone who wanted sent off. There was ample opportunity for Dallas to have granted him that wish.

The elbowing incident was missed by the ref, but it was there, for all to see, on the cameras. It was a shocker, the neddish actions of a street thug. He should have walked before it, but had Dallas saw that there would have been simply no choice and he’d have gone.

For the panel to have looked at it and decided it didn’t merit a card for serious foul play is ludicrous. I don’t believe for a minute that they didn’t believe it was a red card; I think they caved. The compliance officer is either absolutely gutless or he simply doesn’t believe there’s any point in sending the case to the review board when they, too, are a mess.

The people running our game, we all know what they are. But the utter disaster which is our discipline system is something they ought to be absolutely ashamed of. A couple of seasons ago they allowed a Sevco player to walk away from an airtight case because they couldn’t prove “intent” and I wrote at the time they had made it virtually impossible to get a win against anyone who put up a robust defence, and so it has proved.

The compliance officer went to the media this morning to justify his decision, and it was pure waffle.

They couldn’t “prove” violent conduct … well, how the Hell will they ever prove it again?

And what kind of disciplinary body gives the media, to print, a Get Out Of Jail Free cover-story for the next guy?

This is a charter for teams to get away with murder, and the most unscrupulous now have an advantage over the rest.

Not one of us does not know what that means.

Beyond useless.

It takes special talent to screw up to this extent.

Trust the SFA to excel in this one area above all others.

This is a joke, and the joke is on the rest of us.

Imagine the brass neck of Sevco to leak it to the press that they were furious about the BBC and BT Sport giving scrutiny to the incident; these same people were demanding the same in the Scott Brown incident.

They are acting like a club that knows it can do whatever it likes, and why shouldn’t they believe that?

Our entire game is run by spineless fools.

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