A summer free from the drone of appeals

IF THERE has been a sense of something missing in this year’s championship, it could be the nagging drone of disciplinary controversies, which have been part of the soundtrack of many summers.

Since the new disciplinary committees were appointed last April, there has been little embarrassment for the GAA in terms of punishing ill-discipline.

If eyebrows were raised before the summer by the treatment of incidents in the National Hurling League final and the imposition of minimalist sentences in respect of the early Derry-Monaghan Ulster championship encounter, such leniency as was displayed can be traced back to the rule book and the prescribed punishments for the infractions involved.

Since then – and bearing in mind former president Nickey Brennan’s dictum about the GAA always being one bad match away from a disciplinary crisis – the landscape has settled and there have been no long-running sagas, pursued up the appeals ladder in the hope of some magical deliverance.

Among the changes in the disciplinary process has been the appointment of solicitor Liam Keane as chair of the Central Hearings Committee (CHC), effectively the GAA’s court of first instance.

Keane spent the previous four years as secretary to the Disputes Resolution Authority (DRA), the independent tribunal that despite controversies from time to time has fulfilled its remit – to eliminate the numbers taking the GAA to court to seek injunctions against match suspensions.

Those who have observed the CHC in action believe the new chair’s administrative and legal background has helped tighten procedures. Meetings take longer, but there have been fewer successful challenges.

Keane believes the system has settled and that this has improved the smooth running of the process. And he doesn’t see his legal credentials as being of particular importance.

“All of us have come from different backgrounds. Mine is that I play football at club level; I am a solicitor and have experience in sports arbitration. That’s my background, but I don’t have experience of having played football or hurling at a higher level or having been an administrator at the highest levels. I like to think that we all bring something to the table.

“It’s a combination of things. There’s a greater awareness of how the system works and also of how the new disciplinary procedures work, as in what circumstances an appeal can succeed.

“It’s been a gradual, educational and familiarisation process that has sometimes happened in a structured way and sometimes trial and error in the way people have picked up what works and what doesn’t work.

“That’s on one side. On the other side, I think there has to be credit to players, managers, referees and those involved directly in the games. It’s a good year when no one’s interested in what’s happening on the disciplinary front because there’s nothing happening there.”

He accepts that meetings are taking longer, but says it is important to give everyone involved in hearings a reasonable amount of time to present their arguments.

“I wasn’t on CHC before, but I gather the meetings are longer than heretofore. As far as I’m concerned, I think it’s important that everyone gets to present their case and that proper consideration is given to whatever evidence is presented. All members of the committee are anxious to ensure that that happens within time constraints, because you don’t want players left waiting around for decisions either.”

He doesn’t think that the advent of the DRA has led to excessively legalistic presentations, as the GAA has introduced a number of new rules to prevent opportunist exploitation of technical deficiencies.

“I wouldn’t be conscious of that. If you look at the changes to the internal disciplinary structures, many were designed to avoid situations where niceties and loopholes were being exploited by people who really should be subject to disciplinary sanction, while, at the same time, ensuring that if someone was sent off in the wrong, there was a provision to right that injustice.

“I think the balance is right.”