McInnes deserved his ban, and in fact it could have been longer.

I had intended to publish my piece on the SFA report yesterday, but that can wait until tomorrow because we received some breaking news tonight concerning Derek McInnes.

McInnes has been handed a three-match ban, with a further match suspended, for the comments he made following his side’s victory over Falkirk on the same night Celtic beat Motherwell at Fir Park with a last-gasp penalty.

He is fortunate the punishment was not even more severe.

It is always amusing when the media is briefed about how confident a club is of securing some remarkable disciplinary escape, only for nothing of the sort to happen. The suggestion that Peter Grant’s previous case could somehow justify or mitigate what McInnes said was ridiculous. The idea that Brendan Rodgers and his suspended ban might provide a useful comparison was equally ludicrous.

There was no meaningful mitigation for McInnes’s comments.

He was discussing a match in which he was not involved and which he had not watched properly. At best, he had seen the decisive incident briefly while still in an emotional state after his own game. At worst, he was relying on somebody else’s account of what had happened.

I suspect it was the first of those possibilities, but even an emotional reaction does not excuse the language he used.

McInnes said that Hearts were “up against everyone”. That accusation did not concern one referee, one incident or one decision. It suggested that the entire structure of Scottish football, including the SFA and its match officials, was arrayed against his club.

That is fundamentally different from what Peter Grant or Brendan Rodgers said in the cases being cited as supposed precedents.

Grant criticised one specific decision in one match. Rodgers singled out one referee, John Beaton, and questioned his competence and conduct in a particular game. Neither man suggested that every official was part of a wider institutional effort to favour another club.

Whatever people may privately believe about Scottish football is irrelevant. Rodgers did not make that wider allegation, and neither did Grant. Both may have crossed the disciplinary line, but neither implied that the whole system was corrupt.

That was the inference created by McInnes’s remarks.

He could produce every argument in mitigation available to him, but those comments were never going to pass without punishment, particularly after the referee involved reportedly required police protection.

I am only mildly surprised McInnes did not receive the same immediate four-match suspension handed to Elliott Watt. Instead, he has effectively been placed on notice. He will serve three matches now, while the fourth hangs over him throughout the campaign.

His club may appeal. I hope it does, and I hope the SFA regards the appeal as frivolous, because that is precisely what it would be.

McInnes deserved what he received. There is little serious doubt about that outside the usual circles where every sanction is interpreted as evidence of another conspiracy.

If I may give away a little of what I intend to write tomorrow about the Ibrox riot, the club across the city will also deserve what it receives in that case. It will almost certainly face a harsher sanction than Celtic, because the evidence appears to justify one.

McInnes’s own situation is equally straightforward. He did not make his remarks in the immediate aftermath of the Celtic match. He spoke after his own side had played, giving him time to calm down, establish the facts and consider what he intended to say.

Instead, he behaved like a manager who believed his chance of winning the title had disappeared over the horizon.

I never thought there was any realistic prospect of Celtic failing to win the league after the game against the Ibrox club at Celtic Park and the events the following night at Fir Park. When I recorded the podcast immediately after the Motherwell result, Joe and Eric were surprised to hear me say that I now expected us to become champions.

There were still two matches remaining, but I could not see Celtic losing either of them. I did not believe we would drop points, and I knew that if it reached the home match against Hearts, the contest was finished.

It took a little longer than I expected on the day, but I never seriously doubted the outcome.

I suspect McInnes knew the same thing, and that was part of what enraged him.

McInnes is a petty and bitter man, and his comments following numerous Celtic matches over the years have repeatedly demonstrated it. He is never likely to give us the benefit of the doubt or concede that Celtic may simply have been the better side over the course of a campaign.

He will undoubtedly convince himself that this ban proves the institutions of Scottish football are somehow arrayed against him and his club. I hope it stings. I hope it settles deeply upon him, and I hope he reacts exactly as everyone expects him to.

McInnes is the kind of opponent every serious poker player would love to find sitting across the table.

He cannot conceal his emotional state. When he is angry, it is written across every feature of his face. When he is frustrated, it shows in his body language, his words and his general attitude. He cannot bluff effectively because everyone can see what he is feeling.

Celtic victories have always hurt him more deeply than defeats against almost anyone else, and he has never been capable of hiding it.

Good poker players feast on opponents like that. They provoke them, allow frustration to influence their decision-making and wait for them to destroy their own position.

Martin O’Neill is as accomplished a player as anyone McInnes has ever faced across that metaphorical table. Paulina’s article earlier today, setting out the hard numbers behind O’Neill’s success, demonstrated precisely how formidable he is.

McInnes will miss three domestic matches, but the suspended fourth game may become the most important element of the punishment. It will hang over him throughout the season, forcing him to bite his tongue whenever he believes a decision has gone against Hearts.

That restraint will frustrate him more than the initial ban.

Every disputed penalty, every red card and every controversial refereeing decision will test his self-control. Opponents will know it. Journalists will know it. Supporters will know it.

All anyone has to do is press the right button and flick the anger switch.

Then they can stand back and watch him lose control.

That is why I do not expect the suspended punishment to remain suspended for very long. Before the campaign is even halfway complete, I would not be surprised to see that additional match activated alongside a more substantial new sanction.

McInnes will dig the grave himself. Other people will merely provide the shovel.

For once, the SFA has done the right thing. It did not bottle the decision or allow false comparisons to distract it from the seriousness of what was said.

The sanction is lighter than I believed it might be, but stronger than many expected.

That still makes it a job well done.

The SFA has shown some claws for a change.

Now we wait to see how long Derek McInnes can resist giving it another reason to use them.

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