HIBERNIAN have been charged by the Scottish Professional Football League for fielding the suspended Rocky Bushiri in Wednesday’s Premier Sports Cup clash with Morton.
The Easter Road club face a hearing later on Thursday after confirming they played the Belgian defender, who was subject to a one-match ban after picking up yellow cards in the recent fixtures against Falkirk and Bonnyrigg.
Rules state that two bookings in the League Cup automatically equates to a suspension for the following game.
The administrative error will almost certainly ensure last season’s beaten finalists, who were already on the brink of crashing out at the group stage by virtue of their results, will be officially eliminated from the tournament.
Hibs picked up one point from Wednesday’s match after drawing 1-1 and then losing on penalties but the result is likely to be converted into a 3-0 defeat, as was the case in a similar scenario when Elgin fielded the suspended Darryl McHardy against Ayr the week before last.
The likely removal of a point from the Hibees’ current tally of seven would end their slender hopes of finishing ahead of Falkirk in the group and cap an ignominious start to the season for the Premiership club under new manager Lee Johnson following slip-ups against two of their four lower-league opponents in Group D.
Stranraer have also been charged with fielding a player who was subject to a one-match suspension in Tuesday’s game away to Forfar. The Stair Park side were already guaranteed to finish bottom of their group after taking just one point from their four matches.
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 hereLast Updated:
Report this comment Cancel