BROKEN JAWS, fractured cheekbones, black eyes, concussed players, distraught parents, spouses and children. This is just a flavour of what is alleged to have occurred at Sunday’s All-Ireland junior club football semi-final between Tyrone club Derrytresk and Kerry’s Dromid Pearses.
The GAA has begun an investigation and gardaí are waiting to speak to a number of those involved. It would be easy, but also wrong, to prejudge what happened on Sunday and those responsible for it.
The basic tenet of any sports disciplinary process is that the more serious the allegations of wrongdoing; the more serious the procedural safeguards that must surround it.
For now, the one uncontested fact is that Derrytresk will take part in the All-Ireland junior club football final on February 12th after what their opponents admitted was a deserved victory.
It would also be easy and again wrong to scapegoat one club or a set of players for the misbehaviour of many.
Accordingly, whatever the outcome of the investigation the GAA must confront a broader question as to whether it has an ambivalent approach towards, or tolerance of, violence. The point being that if the GAA or any sports organisation is seen to have a lax attitude towards personal violence, then criminal law may have to intervene.
Contact sports, such as Gaelic games, have a strong element of physicality to them. What normally occurs on a pitch is not deemed an assault because players are said to consent to levels of contact within the rules and spirit of the game. Violence occurring outside this is, however, potentially criminal in nature.
The criminal law is not some distant threat and players, substitutes, and spectators should be aware of its reach.
Last November, for instance, at Cork District Court a Gaelic footballer was convicted of assault causing harm to another player. The victim was kicked in the jaw while on the ground.
As regards substitutes, a case of interest called Lawrence was heard in December at the English court of appeal. During a Sunday league soccer game, a row broke out between two players. Almost immediately members of both teams squared up to each other and one of the substitutes struck an opposing player causing him serious injury. The sub was convicted of inflicting grievous bodily harm. Despite an array of good character testimonials from those who had worked and played with the accused, the court of appeal agreed that a jail term of nine months was appropriate.
In both of the above cases, the judges stressed the cowardly nature of the assaults.
For spectators in Northern Ireland, certain GAA matches will now come under the North’s Justice Act of 2011, which makes it a criminal offence for an individual to go onto any area of a pitch to which spectators are not generally admitted, unless that person can prove that he/she had a lawful excuse to do so.
In addition, the 2011 Act provides, like English legislation on football hooliganism, that banning orders can be sought by the police against individuals responsible for violence or disorder at certain games.
Legislation of this kind does not exist here.
There was a suggestion that it might have to be considered to deter spectators at Croke Park from invading the pitch at trophy presentation time on All-Ireland final days. In this regard, with some irony, the GAA feared litigation from spectators who might suffer injury in any resulting crush.
Having said that, the law and lawyers should be the last resort in dealing with violence in sport. It is always preferable that solutions come from inside the sport and there are, for example, two regulatory initiatives that the GAA might consider.
First, it might, as most other sports organisations have, create a full-time disciplinary officer position. This officer could bring greater speed, consistency and independence to many aspects of the GAA’s current disciplinary regime whose labyrinthine nature can sometimes be exploited to detrimental effect.
The second matter is to reconsider the manner in which those involved in violent incidents are punished. Fines are largely ineffective. Suspending a club as a whole, including its underage structure, for the misconduct of a few is often a blunt, unfair and self-defeating means of sanction. Meaningful suspensions targeting individuals are best practice.
Finally, the most important matter that the GAA may have to deal with – and one that sports as diverse as Canadian ice hockey and Australian rules football have addressed – is that a violent ethos is not attractive. It alienates the general fan, parents, children, sponsors and skilful players.
Local rivalry and passion are the GAA’s greatest strength but are also, on occasion, its fundamental weakness. Not controlling them may well be criminal.
Jack Anderson lectures in sports law at Queen’s University, Belfast