Scottish FA defends under-fire compliance officer Clare Whyte
Ian Maxwell moved to clear up the role of the Compliance Officer
The Scottish Football Association has defended its compliance officer Clare Whyte over "unacceptable'' and "grossly unfair'' criticism.
Rangers managing director Stewart Robertson this week claimed there was confusion and inconsistency in the SFA's disciplinary procedures and claimed Whyte was mainly picking up incidents highlighted on television.
Hibernian chief executive Leeann Dempster had previously claimed the system was unfair.
However, SFA chief executive Ian Maxwell stressed that there was a major misunderstanding of Whyte's role, which was to "act independently and in accordance with the rule book''.
He added: "Notwithstanding the Judicial Panel Protocol has now been in operation since 2011, misunderstanding on the remit of the compliance officer not only endures but in recent weeks the criticism of the incumbent has been unacceptable. Not only has it been personal in nature, it has also been grossly unfair.
"The role of compliance officer is to ensure that all those involved in association football in Scotland observe the disciplinary rules, which includes reviewing misconduct missed by match officials and to subsequently raise a notice of complaint where appropriate.
"One of the major changes made this season, agreed by all stakeholders, was to remove the burden on the compliance officer of having to decide both whether an incident was worthy of review and what the outcome of that review should be. Contrary to opinion, the compliance officer does not offer any judgement on any incident.
"When an incident has been identified, the compliance officer asks one fundamental question: was the incident seen, in its entirety, by the match officials?
"If the answer is yes, the matter is closed pursuant to IFAB Law 5: the match official's decision is final.
"If the answer is no - due to either the incident being completely missed (such as an off the ball incident) or that a significant part of the incident has been missed because the match official's view has been obscured or blocked - the incident is referred, independently, to three former category one referees.
"Each of these experts are then asked whether the incident would have resulted in a sending off offence or deemed an act of simulation had it been witnessed at the time. If all three independently reach the unanimous view that the unseen incident constituted one of these, the matter is then progressed. If not, then no retrospective action can be taken.
"From then on it is for the fast track tribunal to determine whether there has been a breach of the disciplinary rules.
Maxwell accepted there was some "confusion and uncertainty'' over last summer's changes and stated the SFA had committed to further talks with Premiership clubs following discussions on Monday.
He also confirmed that the concept of importing foreign referees was not discussed at any point and added that the SFA would not "countenance such a notion''