Peterhead have expressed their disappointment after Simon Ferry’s appeal against his red card against Cove Rangers failed.
The midfielder was given a straight red card by referee Peter Stuart midway through the first half of last weekend’s game at the Balmoral Stadium, with his appeal thrown out by a Scottish FA judicial panel.
Ferry tripped Mitch Megginson in a wide position just inside the Peterhead half and there was confusion as to what offence he had been sent off for.
The Blue Toon were disappointed to discover Ferry challenge had been deemed as violent conduct – defined in IFAB’s law of the game as “when a player uses or attempts to use excessive force or brutality against an opponent when not challenging for the ball” – and were frustrated it was Tuesday before they were notified as to why he had been sent off.
Having appealed the Buchan outfit were also frustrated with Stuart’s description of the incident in his evidence to the appeal tribunal.
Manager Jim McInally said: “After reading the referee’s response myself and Simon felt we couldn’t let him talk about that incident in that manner and Simon actually paid for the appeal out of his own pocket.
© SNS Group
“We appealed hoping that somebody who knows football to a certain extent would see that it wasn’t as bad as described.
“After reading what the referee said you would have expected Simon to have been arrested on Saturday night.
“There was one word in particular used in the context of that tackle, that we felt shouldn’t have been used.
“Ultimately the appeal was thrown out on the camera footage wasn’t conclusive in our favour.
“I can go back to two tackles I saw last Saturday – Shane Duffy’s challenge on Ryan Kent and Shaun Byrne for Dundee on Steven Naismith and both were worse than Simon’s and they were both booked.
“We thought we would appeal it on the grounds that somebody would look at it and see it was a professional foul that happens in football.
“It wasn’t to be unfortunately. After reading what the referee had said we were realistic enough to know it was a long shot.
“Simon had asked a grade one referee for his view on the incident and he felt it was harsh and that a yellow would have been fair.
“We just have to live with the suspension, but we felt some of the language that was used regarding the challenge was out of order.”
Peterhead general manager Martin Johnston feels the system could improve.
He added: “We are in a situation where a player can be cautioned or dismissed, as happened with Simon Ferry, on a Saturday and we didn’t know what the offence was until Tuesday.
“The system can improve because we don’t feel clubs should be finding out 48 hours or 72 hours after the event as to why a player has been sent off.
“That means we could be ill-prepared to submit an appeal because we do not know what we are appealing against.
“There was confusion as to why it was a sending off offence then much to our surprise we found out it was for violent conduct.
“After we had appealed the referee came back with a very strongly-worded report and we are of the opinion that any report by a player, club or match official should merely reflect the facts.
“They shouldn’t feel required to choose their vocabulary and terminology in order to ensure that their argument is backed up.
“Our player is aghast that the view is that he deliberately sought out his opponent to attack him.
“The report painted a different picture that wasn’t reflected in the video footage and he didn’t need to do that.
“We’re disappointed, but not surprised, at the final outcome – but we still don’t think it was violent conduct and we completely disagree with the terminology used in relation to the challenge and that does not relate to what happened at all in our minds.”
1
For as little as £5.99 a month you can access all of our content, including Premium articles.
Subscribe