Clubs have missed chance to change SFA system

THE SFA were quick to issue the reasons for two independent panels finding Celtic’s Aleksandar Tonev guilty of racist comments. How we would all love to hear now how they contrived to find Paul Paton of Dundee United guilty of spitting. Because, despite studying the incident repeatedly on YouTube, it is impossible to say with any absolute certainty that the midfielder really did spit in the direction of Aberdeen’s Jonny Hayes. Even the Pittodrie winger took to Twitter to say it did not happen. Lying on the ground with his back to his opponent, it is hard to see how Hayes could be any more certain than the rest of us. But if he thinks it’s a nonsense, his team-mates say it’s a nonsense and Paton (right) says it’s a nonsense, we are left with little choice but to consider that a strong possibility. That the players are right, the SFA wrong and the decision to impose a two-match ban harsh in the extreme. With no right of appeal, Dundee United are furious. In trademark, thundering fashion, chairman Stephen Thompson has been quick to say so publicly and manager Jackie McNamara has followed suit. Proof the honeymoon period is over for new compliance officer Tony McGlennan came earlier in the week when Celtic promised to pursue the governing body over the seven-game ban for Tonev for racially abusing Aberdeen’s Shay Logan. Charged with calling the Dons defender a ‘black c***’, Tonev was convicted on the ‘balance of probability’ standard rather than the ‘beyond reasonable doubt’ requirement of a criminal court. Celtic say that is not good enough. Their supporters say the attacker has been convicted by a kangaroo court. Mercifully, they won’t go all the way to the Court of Arbitration for Sport — Tonev would be long gone before it ever made it to Geneva — but they could lobby their fellow SFA members for a change to the rules at the next annual general meeting. But here’s the thing: this new system of fast-track judicial review was not imposed on clubs. Scottish football is no totalitarian regime. The system is there because the clubs complained bitterly about the last set-up. And when the new one was tabled, they voted it through in large numbers. With respect to United and Celtic, then, they might have legitimate grounds for complaint over the way justice works now. But why wait until the horse had bolted before raising them?