http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/scotland/south_...and/8521557.stm

"An amateur footballer who received six red cards in the same match has admitted his playing career is over after receiving a two-year ban"

The SAFA are way harder on the amateurs than the SFA are on the professionals. 2 years for a potential wrongful dismissal and 5 cases of dissent .... I have seen more lenient penalties given out for actual physical contact or intimidation of a ref !!!

I was on the committee of the Inverness A.F.A. for a few years and we heard some right horror stories from 'down the road' and handed out a few lengthy bans and fines ourselves (cant remember any of that length though) .... the problem was that if you were too lenient with certain offences, the SAFA would send the decision back to you and tell you to make it harsher ! They (SAFA) also introduced a set of guidelines just as I was coming to the end of my time on the committee that specified minimum bans for certain offences and these were OTT. Whats more, your discipline record over the last 3 years also had to be taken into account and each time you were reported by a ref your ban more or less doubled .... 2 weeks, 4 weeks, 8 weeks, 16 weeks etc .....

Hugh Knapp has always been good at spin though .....

"Mr Cooper was given the opportunity to attend a hearing but decided not to" .....

in other words, you wanted him to miss work, travel the breadth of the country at an inconvenient time, and find out what his punishment was going to be .... there is no arguing your case at these things, the referees report is cast in stone and cannot be questioned as far as the SAFA are concerned, and based on that report, the decision is already made in most cases. If you attend you are basically just there to hear your sentence in person

"He was also given the opportunity to appeal to the Scottish Football Association and again chose not to do that so the matter is closed" ....

What Mr Knapp does not mention is that it costs you an absolute fortune to convene a hearing for the appeal and you only get part of that back if you win (which is rare) !