McInnes is in a world of trouble following the SFA sanctions against Motherwell.

Today, Motherwell player Elliot Watt was banned for four matches, while his club was fined £5,000 for comments made in the aftermath of the game against Celtic on the penultimate day of last season.

That was the night our late penalty put us on course for a final-day title party at Celtic Park.

Watt called it “the worst VAR decision in history”. For those words, he will miss four matches. Every one of them is immediate. None has been suspended.

A precedent has now been established, and that should leave Derek McInnes in a world of trouble ahead of his own disciplinary hearing. Because we know that McInnes made comments which were far more inflammatory than Watt’s.

Watt described one decision as the worst he had ever seen. It was excessive and plainly suggested that the officials had failed catastrophically, which is why the SFA charged him under Disciplinary Rule 72.

But McInnes went much further. He did not simply say that our penalty decision was wrong. He described it as “disgusting” and then said that Hearts were “up against everybody”.

That was not merely criticism of a refereeing decision. It sounded very much like an accusation of bias.

Rule 72 specifically prohibits players, managers, officials and clubs from publicly criticising match officials in a way which indicates either bias or incompetence, or which impinges on an official’s character.

Watt’s comments could clearly be interpreted as suggesting incompetence.

McInnes’s remarks appeared to suggest something darker.

He was effectively saying that Hearts were not merely competing against Celtic but against forces outside their control. Coming immediately after a decision which benefited us in the title race, the implication was obvious.

Whether he intended to accuse the officials, the SFA or the entire Scottish football establishment of helping Celtic almost does not matter. “We’re up against everybody” was always going to be interpreted as something more serious than an emotional complaint about a single decision.

The punishment handed to Watt therefore matters enormously.

Before today, some people might have expected McInnes to receive the kind of punishment Brendan Rodgers was given in 2024 after describing John Beaton’s performance during Celtic’s defeat at Tynecastle as incompetent. Rodgers received a two-match suspension, with one match immediate and the second suspended.

That now looks like an outdated comparison.

The SFA has just handed Watt four immediate matches for one remark. That appears to establish four games as the current benchmark for a serious Rule 72 breach. It is difficult to imagine how McInnes could receive anything less without the SFA making its entire disciplinary process look ridiculous.

Indeed, there is a more recent comparison which should concern him even more.

Neil Lennon received a six-match suspension after comments he made following Dunfermline’s defeat against Ross County in October last year. Four of those matches were immediate, with the remaining two suspended.

Lennon described the refereeing performance as an “abomination” and suggested that the official was “either incompetent or worse”.

That final phrase was always going to cause him enormous difficulty. “Incompetent” is expressly covered by Rule 72. The addition of “or worse” appeared to imply that Lennon believed something more sinister might have taken place.

McInnes did not use precisely the same words, but the meaning behind his remarks was not radically different.

When a manager says that his club is “up against everybody” after a decision benefits its title rival, he is not simply saying that the referee has made an honest mistake. He is suggesting that the competitive environment itself is stacked against his team. That is an accusation of bias, whether he used the word or not.

There is another complicating factor for McInnes which has received less attention. He was not directly involved in the match he was commenting on.

Watt was on the pitch for Motherwell. He had just watched his own side lose in the final seconds because of a penalty award he believed was wrong. That does not excuse his comments, but it at least explains the emotion behind them.

Lennon was commenting on a match involving his own Dunfermline team. Again, his language crossed the line, but it came in the immediate aftermath of decisions which he believed had directly cost his club.

McInnes was managing Hearts, who had beaten Falkirk that evening. He had not been in the dugout at Fir Park. The referee had not made a decision against his team. He had not just watched his own players lose a match. He chose to involve himself in another fixture because its result affected the title race.

Some might argue that this should be regarded as mitigation because Hearts were indirectly affected by what happened.

I suspect the opposite is more likely.

McInnes cannot rely on the same heat-of-the-moment explanation available to Watt or Lennon. His remarks were not the spontaneous reaction of a man who had just watched a decision go against his own team.

They were a considered response to the result of another match.

That makes the comments look less like uncontrolled frustration and more like a deliberate attempt to suggest that Hearts were being treated unfairly.

It also broadens the scope of his accusation.

Watt attacked one VAR decision.

Lennon attacked the competence of the officials involved in one Dunfermline match.

McInnes claimed that Hearts were “up against everybody”. That language did not target one mistake or even one referee. It suggested something systemic.

Rule 72 does not prevent managers from saying that officials have made mistakes. Nor does a manager escape punishment simply because a later review agrees that the original decision was incorrect. The rule concerns the way criticism is expressed.

There is a vast difference between saying, “I believe the referee got that wrong,” and implying that the entire game is somehow arranged against your club and McInnes crossed that line when he said Hearts were “up against everybody”.

Watt has now been given four immediate matches for calling the penalty the worst VAR decision in history, while Motherwell have been fined £5,000 for their own published response to the controversy. McInnes’s hearing takes place next Wednesday.

The tribunal therefore knows exactly what punishment was imposed on Watt before it considers the McInnes case. That makes consistency unavoidable.

A two-match ban would now be almost impossible to justify. It would mean McInnes had received a lighter punishment than Watt despite making a broader and more inflammatory allegation. Four matches should be the absolute minimum.

The real question is whether the tribunal places McInnes alongside Watt or alongside Lennon. The strongest argument for four matches is that Lennon’s tirade was longer, more personal and explicitly included the words “incompetent or worse”. Lennon also admitted the charge and received four immediate matches with two more suspended.

The strongest argument for six is that McInnes’s remarks suggested collective or institutional bias and were made despite him not being directly involved in the match. My expectation is that he will receive six matches in total: four immediate and two suspended.

That would place him in the same bracket as Lennon while recognising that the comments went further than Watt’s social-media post.

There is one final twist of course, and it’s a beauty. McInnes made those remarks as Hearts manager. Any suspension will now be served as the manager at Ibrox.

That should not influence the tribunal’s decision, and it certainly should not lessen the punishment. A disciplinary sanction follows the individual, not the club he happened to represent when the offence was committed.

But the optics will be fascinating. The new Ibrox manager could begin the domestic season in the stand because of comments he made while managing Hearts, alleging that everybody was against them after Celtic received a controversial penalty.

Scottish football does enjoy writing its own comedy. What it cannot do now is pretend that Watt’s four-match suspension has no bearing on the McInnes case.

The SFA has established its standard. McInnes’s comments were at least as serious as Watt’s and arguably much worse. Anything below four immediate matches would be indefensible. Six in total would be entirely consistent with the punishment handed to Neil Lennon.

And after the severity of today’s verdicts, that is exactly the sort of trouble Derek McInnes should expect, and is absolutely in line with what he deserves.

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