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Bairns boss blasts red card farce
Fuming Falkirk chairman Campbell Christie has described Scottish football's red card appeal process as a farce.
The Premier League side are raging with referee Willie Collum for refusing to rescind his highly controversial decision to send off Patrick Cregg in last Saturday clash with Rangers at Ibrox.
And Hearts star Marius Zaliukas joined in the condemnation of the SFA disciplinary system by launching another broadside at referee Iain Brines.
The Glasgow policeman dismissed the Greek defender for allegedly head butting Aberdeen's Lee Miller at Pittodrie and, like in the Cregg situation, refused to change his mind after watching television replays when Hearts lodged an appeal.
The SFA's chief executive Gordon Smith has already promised a review of the appeals code at the end of the season but that has not satisfied the growing band of critics.
Since the match referee is the judge, jury and policeman in the appeals process we should not have expected anything better
Last night Falkirk chairman Christie hit out: “Once again, the appeal process has been shown to be a farce.
“The sooner the entire arrangement is looked at again, the better it will be for football in Scotland and for the relationship between referees and clubs.
“In addition, any new arrangement should not penalise clubs by imposing a fine of £1000 for lodging appeals, a sum which would be better remaining with clubs and not with the SFA in the current economic climate.”
He added: “The rejection of our Cregg appeal flies in the face of the photographic evidence we submitted.
“Since the match referee is the judge, jury and policeman in the appeals process we should not have expected anything better.”
Meanwhile, Hearts star Zaliukas has had to serve a two match playing ban because of his dismissal last month at Aberdeen ... but he is still seething.
Last night he said: “ It has been such a frustrating time for me for I want to be playing for my club all the time.
“What makes it worse for me is that it was a bad decision which saw me suspended.
“You can see from the television pictures that I did nothing wrong but I still lost my appeal.
A lot of people agree with me that I did nothing wrong.
“It was a bad decision and I have to try to put it behind me now. It is very bad for me to have to sit in the stand and watch games when I have done nothing wrong.”