Disciplinary committee facing into busy winter

The GAA's new Disciplinary Review Committee is to meet for the first time next Thursday. Its remit is extensive and will address areas of controversy that have arisen this season. Its terms specify "a general review of Rules 137-145 (disciplinary rules)" with particular reference to recent events.

The committee is further tasked with considering decisions taken by Central Council and anomalies created by the rules on suspension.

There is also going to be a consideration of the "bona fide person" in Rule 41, dealing with authorisation to play in the US, while it is likely the rules on eligibility will be considered after recent disputes in Dublin.

According to committee chairperson Paraic Duffy, also the chair of the Games Administration Committee, the recently prominent Blood rule won't be a major focus of discussion. Differing interpretations of it saw Cork's Munster football final win over Tipperary upheld and Na Fianna expelled from the Dublin championship.

"I don't really want to go into that and further expand the terms of reference. There's no point in going over the ins and outs of the rule; I think our goal will be to ensure that that rule is clear and easy to apply."

An area of major anomaly is the suspension system, based on time, which threatens the GAA with identical fouls in All-Ireland semi-finals resulting in one offender missing the final while the other plays.

"That has to be addressed," says Duffy. "I don't know how the committee will feel about time-based suspensions and match suspensions, but we need to find a suitable recommendation. We've got away with this situation so far and now it has to be looked at. A match ban seems the obvious way out, but players play with so many teams that it's still complicated. We'll have to see."

One matter which brought the GAA to court last summer was the ruling by president Seán McCague that a player who receives a straight red card must serve a month's suspension unless video evidence exculpates him, which abolished the provision whereby a referee's change of mind would also serve as a defence.

"I think that rule could be open to court challenge," said Duffy. "It was the right thing to do in the circumstances but may need to be looked at again."

Another aspect of the GAA's disciplinary rules which Duffy feels needs re-examination is the system whereby the GAC fulfil all functions in the process leading to suspension on video evidence: gathering the evidence, framing the charge, prosecuting the case and sitting in judgment on it.

"Gerry Brady (Dublin Central Council delegate and member of Management Committee) is a solicitor and maintains that we're sitting on a time bomb with this. I think we would be well advised to get independent legal advice here."

For all the controversy, Duffy feels the current disciplinary situation within the GAA is not bad.

"You might sometimes get the impression," he says, "that there is no law or order in the way the GAA operates. But I think now the discipline within the association is much better since all disciplinary matters were moved to the GAC's responsibility. There's far less strokes being pulled."

Chaired by Duffy, the committee's other members are: Cork secretary Frank Murphy, National Referees' Committee chair Dan McCartan, Galway chairperson Frank Burke and Mayo footballer James Nallen.

They have been asked to report back by January so Central Council can frame motions on the findings for next year's annual congress. It will, as Duffy acknowledges, be "a busy Christmas".