Dempster is keen to alter SFA process

HIBS chief executive Leeann Dempster says Premiership clubs are ready to demand changes to an SFA disciplinary process she believes is ‘frustrating and unfair’. Dempster has condemned the current system as ‘trial by

Sportscene’ — where incidents highlighted by TV replays appear to influence the SFA compliance officer on what retrospective charges get issued. And she believes that, judging by the number of complaints this season alone, a majority of clubs have accepted the SFA’s process needs to be addressed urgently. ‘Are clubs happy with

the process?’ asked Dempster. ‘My sense is that clubs are not happy with it because there is a lot of discontent. ‘There is a lot of frustration and that needs to be addressed. The SFA should be having a conversation with member clubs and revisit that. ‘Is that process, week in week out, to re-referee games? ‘Or is it whatever game is on BBC, Sky or whatever, and whatever incident they decided to focus on? Is that what gets picked up or not picked up? There’s just no fairness in it.’ Asked about the ‘trial by

Sportscene’ accusation, Dempster agreed and said: ‘No one is going to convince me otherwise. That is exactly what it is. ‘I don’t think we should get rid of the process but we’ve ended up with a process that’s grown and grown and got twisted and bent out of shape. ‘It would be foolish to say we shouldn’t have a compliance process but is the compliance process that we’ve got doing what we want it to do as clubs? ‘As the chief executive of Hibernian, and being on the sharp end of it recently, I don’t think so.’ Dempster was frustrated by Hibs defender Darnell Johnson receiving a two-game ban for his recent challenge on Emilio Izaguirre and she pointed to inconsistency in how the rules were applied. ‘I don’t pass comment necessarily on his tackle,’ she said. ‘But the fact is that, within that game, there were a few other incidents, let’s put it that way. ‘The tackle on Oli Shaw and the

tackle on Mark Milligan, to name two. ‘If Darnell is going to be cited for his tackle on Izaguirre, the least I was expecting was there would be others. ‘First and foremost, I don’t want to be re-refereeing games. ‘But, if you’re going to do it, it has to be done in a much fairer way. Because I don’t think it is. ‘Why would those two tackles at least not be looked at? It would appear they’ve not been looked at because there was no complaint made against them. So what does that mean? ‘Does it mean that clubs should be complaining about each other all the time? That doesn’t seem fair. ‘If you’re going to go and re-referee a game, re-referee the whole game — not just a part of it.’ Promising to reach out to other clubs before taking it to the SFA, Dempster added: ‘I’m going to have a conversation, absolutely. ‘With the SFA and clubs, we all network together. We have our friends from Hamilton at Easter Road tomorrow and I’m certain we might have a conversation about that.’