GAA Congress: Motion passed doubling suspensions for misbehaviour at underage matches

The GAA at its annual congress passed a number of disciplinary motions to improve rule enforcement and address misbehaviour at matches. Prominent among the measures is a doubling of any suspension picked up at an underage match and the increasing of penalties across the board for physical interference with opponents and match officials.

Of the 19 motions brought forward, just two were defeated and one withdrawn – motion 44, which had been superseded by a Wexford proposal on Friday, removing maximum limits on suspensions.

The two shot down impinged on GAA officials. Motion 46 provided for the suspension of chairs and secretaries in the event of their manager breaching the terms of a suspension.

Such suspensions were also laid out and defined as being debarred from “managing, directing, assisting or communicating in any way before or during the game”.

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The debate inspired all sorts of straw men, from an imaginary need to remove suspended team officials from the premises should they turn up, to illusory interventions in the private telephone conversations of the same officials and their children – who after all, could be playing for the team.

Brian Rennick, chair of the Central Hearings Committee – one of the bodies that had devised the proposals – patiently stood at the podium and explained that there was no intention to require club officials to set up surveillance of their misbehaving managers and coaches – just to request that they observe the terms of their suspensions.

Fermanagh delegate Phil Flanagan ran through some ingenious scenarios in which clubs might lose various volunteers through no fault of their own and indignantly – and unarguably – protested: “Managers don’t give a damn about chairs and secretaries.”

It was lost in a lather of local officials’ anxieties, 21 per cent to 79.

The other defeated motion was 48, an attempt to curtail ‘frivolous and vexatious’ requests for hearings by doubling the proposed penalty if the challenge is based purely on technicalities – as opposed to the merits of the case.

This prompted a clamour of human rights activists on the floor of congress decrying the abandonment of justice and fair procedure.

Again Rennick patiently explained that “to seek to get off on a technicality is unsportsmanlike”. It was he said, “not intended to impact on a player’s right to challenge a suspension”.

What looked a useful deterrent to time wasting ended up with insufficient support, 50-51 per cent.

Underage categories

Earlier, just one of the nine motions on the underage categories succeeded at the GAA’s annual congress in Croke Park. The outcome meant that minor intercounty remained at under-17 rather than revert to under-18 but the one motion accepted provided a rowing back on the decoupling of intercounty under-20 and senior.

The most intense discussion took place on Motion 7, to scrap under-17 as the age for minor. In a wide-ranging debate, which included two presentations on the impact of burnout by Dr Pat O’Neill and Micheál Geoghegan of the development competition control committee.

Dr O’Neill was recapping on the Burnout report that he had chaired in 2008 and showed the effects of such injuries in a series of medical slides, highlighting the demands on players eligible for several teams.

Practices, he said, “must not fly in the face of factual scientific evidence”.

Geoghegan illustrated how 18-year olds would be snared in potentially five teams and double that if he is a dual player.

“If we go back to under-18, we fail the people we set out to protect.”

Those in favour accepted the bona fides of those making the presentations but argued against the conclusions.

Cork CEO Kevin O’Donovan firstly regretted that a motion to decouple under-18s from adult fixtures had not succeeded but advocated restoration of the age grade at intercounty on the basis that the spilt season had removed a lot of the previous problems.

“By moving to under-17 we have pushed down the pressure on young players,” he argued, also citing the clash of fixtures between senior intercounty and the third-level education competitions, especially for counties in Division Two, who could be playing for their place in the Sam Maguire in this summer’s tiered championship.

“There are far bigger problems at Sigerson and Fitzgibbon – sacred competitions but we must find a place for them [in the calendar]. Any team in Division Two is effectively playing championship football.”

He was supported by Joe Costello, Kerry coaching officer. Derek Fahy of Longford argued that the gap between under-17 and under-20 was causing too big “a drop-off”.

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Benny Hurl from Tyrone criticised the treatment of the under-17 minor championship, saying that advertising campaigns and the playing of matches in packed provincial venues raised questions about it as a development grade.

He also criticised Option 3 of the policy on club age grades, which provides for 17-year olds to play for adult teams in certain circumstances and providing they, their parents and club executive sign a waiver form.

“Produce Option 3 and parents might wonder about playing Gaelic games at all.”

Meath delegate Conor O’Donoghue, a member of the GAA’s fixtures analysis group in which capacity he was speaking, opposed the motion, as did Connacht CEO John Prenty.

In a trenchant contribution, Prenty asked were the current regulations being enforced. “Are we policing the situation where managers are running amok?” To accept the motion, he said would be “to send out a very dangerous message”.

He was supported by Armagh’s Paul Duggan and Gaelic Players Association CEO Tom Parsons spoke of the need to protect players “with multiple eligibility”.

John Tobin, a member of the age grade review group, said that was “strongly opposed”.

In the end the motion was defeated by 68 per cent of delegates to 22.

There was however a rowing back on decoupling provisions when a previous prohibition on young hurlers and footballers who have played senior being disqualified from their county’s under-20s.

Motion 10, proposed by Wexford, restricts the prohibition on playing both to a seven-day window.

Proposed by Wexford chair Micheál Martin, the motion attracted widespread support and passed 82-18 – the only motion in the section on age grades to do so.

Kerry hurlers got the go ahead for automatic promotion to the Munster championship in the event of winning the Joe McDonagh Cup. Previously they would have been obliged in those circumstances to play off against the bottom team in the Munster round robin.

Instead, the automatic relegation position would switch between the Munster and Leinster championship depending on which was being contested by six counties, which currently has always been Leinster.

Should Kerry be promoted, Munster would become the six-county round-robin.

It means that should Kerry be successful, they will be guaranteed a season in the Munster senior championship.

Motion 19, proposed by Kerry and Munster Council, received the backing of 91 per cent of delegates.