Gerrard Reiterates Call For Consistency

STEVEN GERRARD has again re-iterated his and Rangers’ call for consistency when it comes to the Scottish FA disciplinary process.

The Ibrox manager has this week lost Kemar Roofe to a two game ban after the striker was cited by the governing body’s compliance officer for a tackle made in last week’s win over St Johnstone.

Gerrard was this morning asked for his response to that, and explained: "I certainly support the statement the club put out. I think my view is shared by a lot of players, a lot of players, a lot of supporters and a lot of people in the media that the compliance and the SFA situation and the way they go about certain things that happen on the football pitch up here does need guidance and support.

"My opinion won't change. Whether that happens in the short, medium or long-term, we'll have to wait and see, but it is what it is. We appealed the Kemar situation because we felt in a couple of areas, that one, we felt the game is being [re]-refereed, which we think is disrespectful to the officials and is undermining their performance on the night when they are seeing incidents live.

"And two, we didn't feel there was any malice or intent in the challenge, but at the same time, we understand it didn't look great when you slow it down or when you show people it 30/40 times - we respect that.

"The decision has been made and we are disappointed as we miss another striker for two games at such a crucial, important time.

"That's not great, but we have a squad good enough and there will be opportunities for other people to come into the team and try to make up for Kemar's loss and we will move forward.

"But, in-terms of the SFA, we will try to be as big a support as we can to try and improve things - not just for Rangers or for me, but for everyone connected to Scottish football because I think it is clear there are many inconsistencies.

"There are challenges that are worse than Kemar's, there are situations that are worse than the [Albian] Ajeti [Celtic striker] one that don't even get looked upon - that's not right for football up in Scotland, so for me, we have to find a better level of consistency.

"In the report we got, there is certain wording and certain language that the incident wasn't seen, or seen clearly bla-bla - there was a yellow card given. There was a referee five yards away and there was a yellow card given.

"You can't days or hours after a game change your mind or have someone else or three guys come and re-referee the game - what's the point in us having referees?

"Why don't we just have no referees and we will just make all the decisions days and hours after the game and we will go from there - it's not right.

"It doesn't happen anywhere else. We have got to trust and support the referees. They are going to make mistakes - they are human beings and we need to get them support in whatever ways we can and then go from there, otherwise you are going to continue to get inconsistencies. Certain clubs are going to get treated differently to others because they're on the TV more and because they are more high-profile, and the situation is not going to change unless we all, collectively, support the SFA and the officials in getting them the necessary support to be better and more consistent."

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