REPUTATION: it may be more important to some than others but, for those to whom it matters, it is something to be defended with vigour and there to be resented more than to have it impugned unfairly.

This is why there is far more responsibility on the shoulders of an Scottish Football Association appeals panel that meets today to discuss the question of whether and how Aleksandar Tonev abused Shay Logan than should ever be allowed to rest with such a group assembled to pass judgement on sporting matters.

Use a racist epithet towards another person in this country and you are quite rightly adjudged to have committed a criminal offence.

However, there will have to be sufficient evidence for that to withstand the scrutiny of a court of law and the standard of required proof is rarely going to be one man's word against another's.

A defence of the process in which Tonev was found guilty and given a seven-match ban - in my view a lenient sentence if we could be certain of his guilt - is that it equates to civil law rather than criminal law.

That means a decision can be based on the balance of probabilities which allows for one man's word being accepted over that of another, as happened notably just last week when a judge decided that the former cabinet member Andrew Mitchell had called a policeman a 'pleb'.

However, that libel case was, as civil actions almost invariably are, held in public so that the proceedings could be properly scrutinised by all those with an interest, either directly or through media reporting.

That has led to some heavy criticism of the judiciary in the Mitchell case, much of which may be misguided, but all of which is healthy.

We know what both men said and how they said it, so we have content and tone on which to assess whether Mitchell has been unlucky or is a sneering snob.

Meanwhile, Tonev has been convicted of racism on the basis of a panel presumably having taken into account the following:

* The probability that a man for whom English is a second language and who has an East European accent could have said something in a derogatory tone that was misunderstood;

* The probability that he made the comment of which he is accused on a part of the pitch where no player, official, or spectator could have heard what he said;

* The probability that he did so beyond the range of the many effects microphones that surround modern football grounds and away from the view of the many cameras that are filming proceedings;

* The probability that he discounted the risk of detection inherent in doing so; and

* The probability that he did not discount that risk but was sufficiently calculated to identify a place on the pitch where he would avoid detection by anyone other than his target.

It is, of course, conceivable that one witness could be so reliable and the other so unreliable that all of that could be considered and the decision reached that Tonev is guilty as accused.

Where there is a real problem, though, is when that "balance of probabilities" standard of proof is aligned with these matters being conducted in private.

I have often wondered at the preference of sports bodies to hold such disciplinary proceedings in private rather than allow them to be routinely scrutinised.

Both public interest and the interest of the public would be much better served by opening them up, not least because it would ensure that proceedings are conducted in a proper fashion.

We are told that the full ruling will be issued once the appeal process is complete, but that will be several weeks after Tonev was found guilty, albeit that term is not appropriate if we are properly equating this to civil, as opposed to criminal proceedings.

In considering Tonev's case, the mind also flits to how we might view matters if a serious, reputation-wrecking accusation had been levelled at a young Scottish player who was playing in Bulgaria and he had been found guilty at secret proceedings, an official account of which was to be produced at a later date.

On that note, I cannot help but think back a couple of weeks into the way it was received in this country when a football governing body opted to publish its version of the findings of an investigation into the way it does things.

Just as we should have had access to the full findings of the FIFA report, natural justice demands that there should be full access to disciplinary proceedings involving our sportspeople, particularly when such serious accusations are levelled.