Clemency plea over sanctions for Hearts

RANGERS manager Ally McCoist believes the Scottish Premier League would be wrong to impose a points deduction on Hearts today for the late payment of wages to coaching staff and players.

An SPL sub-committee will hold a disciplinary hearing into the Tynecastle club’s failure to pay some salaries on schedule this month. On Monday, Hearts were issued with a reprimand and warned with regard to their future conduct for the same offence in September.

Under new financial fair play regulations, which came into force this season, potential sanctions for a repeat offence include docking of league points or a fine but McCoist, who saw Rangers’ financial implosion last season earn an initial 10-point deduction before their summer exclusion from the SPL, insists any penalty which directly affects Hearts manager John McGlynn and his players would be unfair.

“The people who are suffering just now are the Hearts players and staff,” said McCoist. “So if there is a punishment put on the club, who’s going to suffer? It will be the players and the staff again. The irony is not lost on me and it’s probably not what everybody would think but I don’t see any sense in punishing the people who are already being punished.

“We got punished last season and rightly so, but, effectively, it was the people who were being punished getting punished again.

“In our case that was fine but I don’t want to see the Hearts players or staff punished again, or the club because that’s what will happen again. It’s not right, because they’re the ones who are suffering.”

SPL chief executive Neil Doncaster, secretary Iain Blair and board member Stephen Thompson, the Dundee United chairman, comprise the three-man sub-committee which will determine Hearts’ fate today.