BY IAIN COLLIN – Capital City Press
Falkirk manager Peter Houston and first-team coach Alan Maybury have both landed themselves in trouble with the SFA for their actions after Saturday’s controversial 3-1 defeat to Rangers.
The Bairns were left incensed by referee John McKendrick’s decision to award a free-kick against Tom Taiwo for an alleged foul on Nicky Law, with James Tavernier scoring from the set-pice to give Rangers an 81st-minute lead.
Houston, who also claimed Rangers’ management team had put pressure on the whistler at half-time, revealed afterwards that McKendrick had informed him he would be reported for a foul-mouthed rant after full-time.
The former Scotland assistant is reported to have called McKendrick a ‘sh***bag’.
However, it is Maybury who has been served with a notice of complaint from SFA compliance officer Tony McGlennan for the use of ‘offensive, abusing and insulting language’ towards McKendrick.
The ex-Hearts and Hibs defender has admitted breaching disciplinary rule 203 and has accepted the offer of a one-match suspension.
Houston, meanwhile, has escaped punishment for what was said to the referee but has instead been accused of breaching rule 72 in a Falkirk TV interview by ‘criticising the decisions and performance of the match officials in such a way as to indicate bias and incompetence on their part, and which also impinged upon their character’.
He said in the interview: “It was the poorest decision I’ve seen for years; Tom Taiwo wins the ball.
“As soon as that decision went against us and they scored from it, it’s cost us the match, as simple as that.
“There was a tackle in the first minute on Craig Sibbald which in any walk of football, all over the world, is a yellow card – at least. Today, the referee didn’t deem that a tackle that merited anything else other than a foul.
“If that had been a Falkirk player I’m convinced our player would have been booked in the first minute.”
Talking of the Rangers management, he added: “They were giving (the referee) a hard time, telling the referee he had given them nothing.
“And what happens if the referee gives you nothing, it can influence them in some ways, and I think today it influenced him in a way where he gave them something he shouldn’t have given them.
“When you come here you’ve got to have strong officials and if you’ve not got strong officials that’s what can happen.”
Asked whether he thought anyone from Rangers deserved SFA action, he concluded: “It’s Ibrox we’re at, it’s the opposition, the wee diddy team that gets pulled up for things like that.”
Houston has been given until next Tuesday to respond and faces a Hampden hearing on October 29.
@IainCollin
