We are in a position today where a player who has gone out to hurt his opponent has walked away from the incident with not so much as a slap on the wrist.

Welcome to Scottish football.

A place where you’re allowed to kick out at you opponents, as long as you don’t kick too hard.

That’s the precedent set today and since the start of the season by the SFA who have gone about their business in spectacularly comical fashion.

Alan McGregor got away with a big one on Sunday when the referee and officials didn’t spot his petulant kick out at Celtic defender Kristoffer Ajer. Had Collum seen the incident then McGregor would have walked and Celtic would have been awarded a penalty – neither of these happened.

So with every camera on Alan, with every conceivable angle covered it seemed a matter of when and not if the player would be punished for his thuggish behaviour.

Roll up the SFA compliance team. Erm Nothing to see here lads.

So we now have a scenario where everyone has seen McGregor perpetrate an unprovoked assault on a fellow professional that even his own manager blasted him for, yet nothing in the way of punishment.

Speaking on Sunday Steven Gerrard said:

“He’s lashed out. Of course I will speak to him about it.

“Look, I’m honest, I’ll tell you what I see. I’m not going to sit here and do otherwise.

“If something’s blatant, it’s blatant.”

Something stinks.

Let’s get this straight, this is no skin of Celtic’s backside in the long or short term – it means very little to the club to have this guy suspended after the original offence went unpunished on the day.

However, the precedent has now been set for the future. If a player gets away with a cheeky kick or stamp at the time then they should be in the clear – it’s as simple as that.

You can barely get more blatant than McGregor lashing out on Sunday. It sends the absolute wrong message to everyone in our game.

Cheats and thugs can get away with acting like morons even if there are 50 cameras pointed at them. It’s bizarre.