HIBS were today facing a £10,000 SFA fine after the Easter Road club's red card tally for the season soared into double figures as Martin Canning and Ian Murray were sent off at Celtic Park.
It was the second time in just three matches Hibs had ended a game with only nine players, Thierry Gathuessi and Colin Nish having been red carded during the clash with Aberdeen at Pittodrie a fortnight earlier.
Now Hibs' disciplinary record is ce
rtain to come under close scrutiny from the Hampden authorities who docked the Edinburgh club £5000 at the end of last season after ten players were sent for an early bath.
That fine was imposed after Hibs were warned in mid-season their behaviour would have to improve following an analysis by the SFA's disciplinary committee. Statistics are prepared based on the overall number of disciplinary points within each division incurred by each club in first-team league and cup matches.
Clubs with an average appreciably higher than that of their division come under scrutiny at the halfway point and they can have suspended fines applied if their records haven't improved or be warned in regard to their present record.
Hibs escaped such a warning when the committee examined disciplinary records at the midway point of this season, Capital rivals Hearts, who were fined a record £20,000 last summer, and Gretna being the only two SPL sides to be cautioned as to their behaviour. At that stage four Hibs players – Clayton Donaldson, Filipe Morais, Dean Shiels and Thierry Gathuessi – had been sent off, leaving the Easter Road outfit third bottom of the "Fair Play" League.
But since then Morais, Murray (twice), Gathuessi, Nish and Canning have seen red which will undoubtedly lead to sanctions being imposed.
If the SFA follow normal procedure last season's fine will be doubled, leading to a £10,000 penalty, Hearts' whopping £20,000 payout having been based on three successive seasons of ill-discipline, the sanction being doubled on each occasion.
Both Canning and Murray will now miss Hibs' last game of the season, against Motherwell on Thursday week, a game which the Edinburgh club had hoped would allow them to overhaul the Fir Park outfit to take third spot and a place in next season's UEFA Cup.
Motherwell's controversial win over Aberdeen allied to Celtic's 2-0 victory yesterday now means third place is beyond Hibs – who will enter the InterToto Cup in early July – but Paatelainen will be determined to claim fourth place with a win over Mark McGhee's side. Murray's red card will also have further implications with the utility man set to miss the start of next season as he has crossed the disciplinary points threshhold meaning that in addition to his one-match automatic ban a further suspension will carry over to the new campaign.
Paatelainen professed to have not seen the challenge by Canning on Celtic's Barry Robson which led to the Hibs star's second yellow card, but he admitted to disappointment that an experienced player like Murray had made the challenge he did on Aiden McGeady which saw him shown a straight red by referee Dougie McDonald with the game deep into injury time. He said: "If he wants to stop the opponent and hold up play, he knows he doesn't have to take a swing at him like that."
The full article contains 565 words and appears in Edinburgh Evening News newspaper.
