St Johnstone are to decide whether to appeal the two-match ban offered to Frazer Wright.
The centre-half was issued with a notice of complaint by the SFA for an alleged elbowing incident involving Mikael Lustig during Saints’ game against Celtic last weekend.
Referee Alan Muir and the rest of the officials saw nothing wrong at the time but the governing body’s compliance officer Vincent Lunny has now acted after TV footage highlighted the flashpoint.
The club have until 3pm on Wednesday to decide whether to lodge an appeal in a bid to have Wright available for Sunday’s crunch final game of the season against Motherwell.
Perth boss Steve Lomas is already without centre-half David McCracken who has just undergone a knee operation.
The last thing the manager would have wanted was to lose another defender as St Johnstone look to try to keep their Europa League hopes alive by beating the Steelmen.
If Saints do decide to go ahead with the appeal, it would be heard on Thursday at Hampden, with the club needing to post £1000 which would only be refunded if the disciplinary panel cleared Wright.
A St Johnstone spokesman expressed the club’s concern that their player was in danger of becoming the victim of trial by television.
He said: “The manager, Steve Lomas, and chairman, Steve Brown, will sit down on Wednesday morning and view the video footage from the match.
“A decision will then be taken whether we will be lodging an appeal which would be heard on Thursday.
“We note that the alleged incident involving our player seems to have been missed not only by a referee but his two assistants, the fourth official and the observer in the stand.
“If this is the way on-field incidents are to be dealt with, there will have to be consistency across the board.”
Courier Sport understands there is anger within McDiarmid that Celtic’s Victor Wanyama grabbed Saints striker Rowan Vine by the throat as the two tangled at Parkhead but that incident was not put under the same TV scrutiny as the one involving Wright.