RONNY DEILA will continue to play Aleksandar Tonev while the winger awaits a decision on his appeal against a seven-game ban for racially abusing Aberdeen's Shay Logan.

The Bulgarian's appeal was heard at Hampden last night.

But after almost three hours, the decision was taken to adjourn the case for a fortnight.

Tonev has already served one match of the ban imposed on him at a SFA Disciplinary Hearing on October 30.

The 24-year-old sat out the home win over Inverness on November 1 because his appeal had not been submitted to Hampden by then.

As soon as it was, the remainder of his ban was put in abeyance until the case was heard by the Appeal Tribunal.

Deila also left Tonev out of the match against Aberdeen at Pittodrie on November 9, explaining that he wanted to protect the player.

But Deila has been involving Tonev in more and more games in recent weeks, and he started Wednesday's win over Partick Thistle.

The man who is on loan from Aston Villa will be in contention again for tomorrow's game at Motherwell.

Tonev was found guilty of the offence, which was alleged to have taken place during a league game at Celtic Park on September 13.

However, he has consistently denied making any racist remarks to the Englishman.

The Celtic manager is convinced of his player's innocence, and has questioned how - when the tribunal had no corroborative evidence or witnesses, making it a case of one man's word against another - the initial hearing could find Tonev guilty.

The SFA rules make it clear that, in such cases, their decision can be based on "the balance of probabilities" of an offence having been committed.

Deila had previously indicated that, if Tonev's suspension was upheld, Celtic would be prepared to consider taking the case to the Court of Arbitration for Sport in Switzerland.