Former Rangers director of football has bizarrely agreed with Celtic’s claim that Jon Flanagan’s two-match ban being overturned is a “huge embarrassment” – and thinks the decision will open the floodgates for clubs to appeal every punishment they pick up.
Flanagan’s ban was overturned after he was cited by the compliance officer for apparently elbowing Scott Brown in the face – despite the match referee issuing a yellow card at the time.
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“Celtic issued a statement labelling the entire scenario “a huge embarrassment for Scottish football,”
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“What’s more, it will continue to be a problem because clubs will surely now be queuing up to appeal against all manner of sanctions.
“The season started with a bad, bad decision by the SFA in rescinding the red card shown to Alfredo Morelos for taking a boot at Scott McKenna at Pittodrie.
“It is ending the same way.”
Quite why Smith agrees is something he doesn’t really expand on but the idea that games should be getting re-refereed after the even is as big of an “embarrassment” for Scottish football as the idea of Flanagan’s ban getting overturned.
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Smith’s comments on Morelos’ red card, however, are quite simply laughable and betray a woeful lack of knowledge of the laws of the game from someone who was, fairly recently, chief executive of the Scottish FA.