Yellow card proposals to be modified for Congress

GAA director general Páraic Duffy expressed his own concerns about the FRC proposal on yellow cards over the weekend, and whether it would be passed at Congress without some modification. McGee is in full agreement.

“Like I had people coming up to me, saying surely we aren’t going to send a player off after five minutes, for a foul say, of pushing someone in the back. No. That was only the very superficial analysis of it. But we were never going to start sending players off left, right and centre, after just five minutes.

“What we’ll probably do is list the actual fouls that will result in this yellow card, the ones we are most concerned about, and once we identify them, that they will be treated differently to what before might have been an ordinary yellow card.

Cynical fouling

“So bearing all that in mind, this proposal was always going to be rewritten in some way, but the rationale and spirit, to punish cynical fouling, will remain the same. We just have to make sure that the implementation of it is so clear that everyone will understand it.”

With Congress set for Derry, on March 22/23rd, slightly earlier than other years, McGee also agreed with Duffy’s suggestion that the FRC hold off on the second half of their report, concerning championship structures, until later in the year.

“Well it was never really meant for this Congress, anyway,” said McGee. “We thought at the very beginning we could do both aspects of the report in one year, but we got overwhelmed with the reaction to the rules proposals, so swarmed, we needed the break anyway.So there is no urgency on that.

“Nothing would be happening this year, anyway. It will be the 2014 championship before any changes would be made, so that allows for maybe a special congress at the end of this year, is so desired. We also have to talk closely with each of the provincial councils to see what they might be agreeable to, because we’re not just going around like sales reps, trying to sell a product. We need to know what product is actually wanted in the first place.”