RANGERS defender Craig Moore made history yesterday by becoming the first victim of an on-field offence to give evidence to the SFA disciplinary committee. His version of the incident, when he was allegedly struck by an elbow in a clash with Alan Lawrence, proved a success for the Hearts striker who had his sentence reduced as a result of the Ibrox man's intervention.
It is the first time that the committee has allowed evidence of this type and was forced upon them after the Hearts man, backed by the Scottish Professional Footballers' Association, had his appeal upheld by the new independent board, headed by Lord MacLean, which asked the committee to reconsider its original verdict, a one-match ban and 12 points added to the player's record.
On hearing the evidence, the committee have erased the additional 12-point punishment. Now, Lawrence has to decide if he should appeal against the single match ban.
SPFA secretary Tony Higgins said: ``This is a considerable step forward for us for we have argued all along that the committee should listen to all the views from everyone so that natural justice should be seen to be done.
``For the first time the committee have heard the views of the other player involved and this gives a balanced view. They have accepted his evidence that it was unintentional.
``Following that, the committee has dealt with the matter as being foul and reckless play rather than violent conduct.''
Lawrence will miss the Tennents Scottish Cup tie with St Johnstone on Thursday if he does not make another appeal.
Hearts, meanwhile, are hopeful that Gilles Rousset, their French keeper, will be back for the cup-tie. Rousset missed the league game against Celtic at Parkhead on Saturday because of a leg injury but is confdient that he will be okay for the visit to McDiarmid Park.
St Johnstone will be without their injured prolific scorer, Phillip Scott, who will be absent for the tie and some vital league matches to follow.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article