Graeme Shinnie Aberdeen appeal: Reasons revealed for rejection and extra game ban
Shinnie was sent off in stoppage time during last Friday’s 1-0 win away at Ross County. The midfielder was handed an additional one-game ban by an independent panel after the Dons’ appeal against his red card in Dingwall was deemed to have had “no prospect of success”. Aberdeen had been in talks with the SFA following the outcome from Tuesday night’s hearing but their attempts to soften Shinnie’s punishment were doomed to fail. However, they are keen to institute general change after PFA Scotland claimed many of its members had lost faith in the system and argued that the threat of an additional ban was used to discourage appeals.
The SFA have now published the tribunal’s written reasons for the refusal to overturn the red card, which was handed out after Shinnie followed through in a challenge on Ross County defender Jack Baldwin. The three-strong panel unanimously decided to impose the extra suspension and wrote: “The Fast Track Tribunal could not reasonably deduce from the evidence presented, that the opposing player was not endangered by the player’s actions as submitted. To do so, was entirely unreasonable and implausible. It was also unanimously rejected that the player did not lunge, did not use excessive force and was in control of his movement on the evidence presented. For those reasons, we felt that the Claim had no prospect of success.”