Having seen the incident live from the front row of the main stand , I have to agree with the referees association that his punishment is an absolute disgrace. At the time a number of us felt the referee should have handed him at least a second red card for laying his hands on the assistant referee and that it was the worse incident I had ever seen. A straight red secures a three game ban and whilst legal issues may have helped his case, the end result sends the wrong message out to footballers (and Dundee United's management, who will feel argued his case successfully).

He's effectively escaped any punishment at all. It was a 1 game ban (+1 if he reoffends), but he's out injured for the few weeks and will serve the ban whilst unavailable for selection anyway.

 

I'd agree that aggressively putting your hands on an official should still have merited more than 2 games.

Having seen the incident live from the front row of the main stand , I have to agree with the referees association that his punishment is an absolute disgrace. At the time a number of us felt the referee should have handed him at least a second red card for laying his hands on the assistant referee and that it was the worse incident I had ever seen. A straight red secures a three game ban and whilst legal issues may have helped his case, the end result sends the wrong message out to footballers (and Dundee United's management, who will feel argued his case successfully).

 

Never mind a second red card, he effectively didn't even get one! His red card was later reduced to yellow on appeal!

I also saw clearly what he did to Graham Shinnie and I couldn't understand why the appeal on that was successful considering the soft reds that we were unable to overturn last season. He should have had a lengthy ban for this one as well though and I quite agree with the referees. Absolutely disgraceful (good entertainment at the time though!)

who would be a referee when players can now assault them and pretty much get off with it? i wonder how it would have panned out if the assistant smacked ciftci in the gob.

Edited December 5, 201311 yr by robbylad