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venus confident loovens will make derby date

CELTIC assistant manager Mark Venus sees no reason why Glenn Loovens should be in danger of being suspended for the first Glasgow derby of the season in 12 days – because the SFA are obliged to give the club sufficient notice for the date of his impending appeal hearing.

Using video evidence, the SFA’s disciplinary panel found the Hoops’ Dutch defender guilty of violent conduct after an incident with Rangers player Maurice Edu in a derby match on May 9, 2009.

Loovens was handed a one-game ban for the offence in early August but Celtic immediately appealed and, taking the club’s heavy schedule into consideration, offered dates a number of weeks ago to the SFA for the hearing to take place.

However, some five months after the original incident occurred, Loovens is still waiting to learn his fate and Venus admits he would be astonished if the SFA suddenly called for the appeals panel to convene before the October 4 clash at Ibrox.

He said: “We’ve offered some dates to the panel for the hearing, but as yet we haven’t come together to get the right date. We have a heavy schedule – a lot of fixtures – but we have given them dates. As yet, nothing has been arranged.

“I don’t see how they can get together before the Glasgow derby. Surely, we have to get a bit of notice? We appealed two months ago, so you’d like to think you would get the courtesy of getting some notice as to when the date is.

“It has run for a while now. To benefit all parties – clubs, players, press, the SPL – the quicker these things are done, the better. If they can get together as quickly as possible after the appeal comes in, everyone would prefer that.”

Venus was speaking after SFA Chief Executive Gordon Smith admitted that the speed of the appeals procedure needed to be addressed.

Smith said: “It would be helpful if things were done quicker, I accept that, but it is down to committees and the systems at the SFA.

“I don’t really have the power to change these things. It is all about procedures that are already in place at Hampden. People keep telling me it is about trying to bring people together for the committee or the appeal panel or whatever.