AS someone who grew-up in football playing: "Ayrshire Junior Rules", I am highly-cynical when it comes to players and managers moaning about fines and suspensions being levied on them after they misbehaved. If we all played to the AJR protocol of: "Nae bluid, nae foul" - we could simply get on with the game and the world would be a better place.

I have also been for ages an advocate of zero tolerance for on-field misdemeanours. The weakness of the principle of a referee and two assistants, as in use today, is that almost all referees are, at heart, football enthusiasts. I know there is a cynical view in Scotland that to even contemplate becoming a referee, you have to have serious personality problems and be extremely anti-social. OK, perhaps the odd referee meets that description, but so-too are a few players and managers, it's life folks. But, in my experience, the vast majority of referees are in it from a deep love of the game and, not being top-drawer players, they have found refereeing a good way of taking their love of the game further than their talent might otherwise allow.

So, referees are often guilty of letting minor dissent and law breaches go unpunished, the players are enboldened and the misbehaviour gets worse. Then, when the poor wee dears are finally brought to heel, they react like the over-grown, spoiled kids most of them are.

Then there are the managers, who scream blue murder if one of their guys is hit illegally or is the victim of unseemly behaviour, but tend not to see their own guys' bad behaviour. "They awe dae it but oor boays" is the managers' default position.

So, when guys like Michael Higdon and Leigh Griffiths step over the line, I have no sympathy for them when they are caught and punished.

That said, there are a lot more, far-more-serious issues on which the SFA adopts a laissez faire attitude. But, I believe they should be congratulated on getting to grips with the smaller issues, so long as they start sorting-out some of the bigger issues as well.

Footballers are, by and large, thick; their general behaviour is terrible, they lack discipline and the clubs seem quite happy to let them behave like neds in shorts. Brighter players, forced to behave in an orderly, disciplined manner, just might be the first step in Scottish football's recovery.