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Scotland’s referees are seeking urgent clarification from football’s law makers over what constitutes a straight red card ahead of the return of the top flight this weekend.

Record Sport understands the SFA has sent a video package of some highly-controversial early season flashpoints to the international authorities, asking for their guidance after the rule book was changed during the summer.

The clips are believed to include incidents involving Rangers pair Alfredo Morelos and Allan McGregor as well as Hearts striker Steven Naismith.

Morelos was sent off on the opening weekend at Pittodrie for kicking Aberdeen defender Scott McKenna. That red card was later reduced to a yellow after a successful Ibrox appeal.

The following weekend Naismith avoided retrospective disciplinary action despite being caught on camera sinking a boot into the backside of Celtic winger Jonny Hayes.

And punters were up in arms again last week when Scotland keeper McGregor was not carpeted by the compliance officer for kicking out at Celtic defender Kristoffer Ajer.

To add to the confusion, Kilmarnock’s Gary Dicker and Aberdeen’s Mikey Devlin have both had red card appeals booted out by the SFA’s judicial panel.

And it’s understood, on the back of this latest rumpus, chief executive Ian Maxwell requested clearer guidelines form Europe.

A Hampden source said: “There seems to be some uncertainty over the wording of some of the most recent rule changes. The SFA want to make sure that we are interpreting them in the correct way.

“One of the things which seems to be causing an issue is the use of the word ‘brutality’. In Scotland we tend to think that means hitting someone over the head with an axe. We’re not sure it translates the same across Europe.

“But we are not the only ones experiencing some difficulty. In Poland for example, every hand ball inside the box has been given as a penalty, deliberate or not.

“New wording has been brought in and what we need across the board is a greater degree of clarity.”