{{primary_category}}
{{/primary_category}} 
'The game's being ruined' - Scott McDermott hits out at latest Gers controversy
Scott McDermott has weighed in heavily over the SFA’s decision to take retrospective action on Rangers ace Kemar Roofe, calling it ‘a joke’.
Roofe was charged and faces a two-match ban after the SFA deemed his late challenge in the St Johnstone match on Wednesday, which warranted a yellow card at the time, to constitute “serious foul play”.
There has been mass outrage from many quarters of football and chief football writer for the Daily Record McDermott was the latest to offer his strong take.
Whatever you think of Roofe tackle, it's a joke that SFA have now cited him. He was very lucky not to see red but ref deemed it a yellow card. It happens, that's football – or what I thought was football. Between VAR and this constant re-refereeing, the game's being ruined…
— Scott McDermott (@scottmcdermott8) February 5, 2021
He labelled the decision by the SFA to take action on Roofe a “joke” and said “between VAR and this constant re-refereeing, the game’s being ruined” on his personal Twitter page.
McDermott doubled down on this view and said retrospective action should not be used on incidents that have already been dealt with by the referee on the pitch.
Rangers now have until the end of Monday to appeal the decision with a hearing set for Tuesday if they do decide to fight back.
Two on the trot…
The merits of whether such retrospective action should be taken can be debated for hours but the facts are two Rangers forwards have now been handed bans by the SFA in consecutive games (Alfredo Morelos v Hibernian, Roofe v St Johnstone).
It is difficult to come away with the feeling that the Gers are not being hard done by here and McDermott certainly raises a valid argument in regards to the ‘re-refereeing’ of the game.
If the referee has seen the incident and made his decision who are the SFA to overrule him?
Are they going to inspect every ruling made by the referee and act accordingly?
How about when the Gers are denied legitimate penalty claims, are the SFA going to go run the footage back after the game and hand us a retrospective penalty?
It has all become rather tedious and adds to the growing disillusionment around the top brass of Scottish football.
Steven Gerrard and co should be able to cope without Roofe and Morelos for the next few games, and title number 55 looks safe with the Light Blues currently 23 points ahead, but decisions like this will only add to the belief that Rangers are being held up in a different light to the rest of the league.
In other Rangers news, Chris Sutton makes bizarre referee claim about the Gers.