NEIL Lennon last night called on the SFA to admit they were wrong to ban Celtic playmaker Ryan Christie for grabbing the private parts of Rangers striker Alfredo Morelos and apologise.

Lennon, speaking from the Parkhead club’s winter training camp in Dubai, confessed he was angry that Christie had been cited for an incident in the Ladbrokes Premiership game last month and then handed a two match suspension.

The Northern Irishman believes the decision to sanction the player for violent conduct will lead to a spate of similar punishments and has called for common sense to to be applied in the governing body’s disciplinary process in future.

“From the club’s point of view we are extremely disappointed and bewildered by the outcome,” he said. “I just don’t see how you can come to that conclusion. It’s so inconsistent. How they find that to be an aggressive act or an act of brutality, as they put it, is baffling to me.

“Honestly, we’re been talking about this for years. There is so much confusion – but we have seen incidents that are a lot worse than that go unpunished. There really wasn’t much to it, yet he's been cited for it and found guilty of how they describe it. But it’s absolutely bizarre from our point of view and very frustrating.

"It’s so inconsistent. I’ve seen worse that either goes uncited or goes unpunished even when they have been cited. We are angry about it. The club will speak to the SFA, though I don’t know if they will get any clarification on it or not. But from our point of view we are bitterly disappointed with the outcome.

“It’s nothing. We’ve looked at it time and time again and, if anything, it’s accidental. Listen, we could show you umpteen other incidents far worse than that that have gone unpunished. We don’t understand it and are very angry about it.

“There are going to be a lot of bans handed out. A lot of players are going to get cited. One, Ryan is not that type of player. Two, it didn’t look like he made a deliberate attempt to do anything. If you had played the game and had any common sense about you then you would know that.

“I would like to see common sense prevail. I’d like them to say, ‘sorry, we made a mistake’. There are three ex-referees on the committee. I’ve been to these things before and I’ve come out scratching my head so they are consistent in that aspect.”

Asked if he thought the SFA had acted because of the high-profile nature of the fixture it occurred in, Lennon said: “Possibly, but it’s still just a game. And the rules have to be the same. But they seem to be inconsistent. They can’t be right for this game and not right for another game.

“I couldn’t believe it. People say Ryan will be injured anyway, but that’s not the point. There is a principle here and I am bewildered that something as innocuous as that can result in a three game ban.”

Lennon is optimistic Christie, who is suspended for three games due to the red card he received against Livingston back in October, will be back playing quickly. “He’s recovering from groin surgery,” he said. “He may miss the first week of the restart, but we hope he will be back for the second. He can’t do anything out here.”