CELTIC midfielder Ryan Christie has been handed a two-match ban following his foul on Rangers forward Alfredo Morelos.
Christie escaped with only a free-kick against him after catching the Colombian in the groin area with his hand during Rangers' 2-1 win at Celtic Park on December 29.
But he was subsequently charged with violent conduct by the Scottish Football Association and a fast-track tribunal found him guilty.
The 24-year-old had already been booked by referee Kevin Clancy for a foul on Morelos when he appeared to grab the striker after he had been nutmegged by the Colombian.
Christie will miss Celtic's William Hill Scottish Cup clash with Partick Thistle on January 18 along with their Ladbrokes Premiership encounter at Kilmarnock four days later.
The ban triggers an extra one-match suspension because it is his second red-card offence of the season - he was sent off against Livingston - so he will also sit out the visit of Ross County on January 25.
The Scotland international is recovering from groin surgery and was rated "touch and go" by assistant manager John Kennedy for the trip to Maryhill.
Celtic had vowed to defend their player "vigorously" and stated they were "astonished" by the SFA charge when it was announced on December 31.
The Scottish champions called for a meeting with the SFA a year ago after Morelos escaped retrospective action for several incidents during the corresponding fixture, including flicking his hand into Christie's groin area.
Morelos could still be hit with retrospective action over the cut-throat gesture he made towards Celtic fans after he was sent off in the closing seconds of the game.
Christie's offence fell under fast-track procedures but gestures fall outside of those time limitations.
Rangers later claimed Morelos had been subjected to racial abuse and claimed his gesture was "used commonly throughout South America to indicate quite simply that something - in this case, the match - is finished".
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article