‘Cheating is a part of football’

I must say I enjoyed every minute of the drama, excitement and talking points that were thrown up in abundance in the first weekend of the Scottish Premiership season.

Sky Sports could not have shown two better games than Rangers opener against Hamilton Accies on Saturday in front of a raucous Ibrox crowd, before the full-blooded affair at Tynecastle where an impressive Hearts side just lost out to a Scott Sinclair-inspired Celtic.

No doubt the biggest talking point was the incident at Tynecastle when Hearts Jamie Walker won a very dubious penalty that he converted himself to tie the game at 1-1 before he was immediately labelled a ‘cheat’ by Celtic and Scotland captain Scott Brown after the game.

Walker insisted there was contact from Kieran Tierney but, having watched the incident numerous times, I believe there was no contact at all and he was guilty of simulation. As a result, my guess is he will be served with a notice of complaint by the SFA’s compliance officer Tony McGlennan and offered a two-game ban. It will then be up to Walker and his club to accept or appeal that judgement.

Bizarrely, an offence that the referee spots is worthy of a yellow card but if found guilty retrospectively, the player can be suspended for two games. That does not make sense.

I’m not asking anyone to agree with my stance on it but I believe cheating is a part …

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