Lawyers take over the asylum

All-Ireland SFC Quarter-final replay/Tyrone v Dublin: Tom Humphries on how the GAA, in trying to stay out of the civil courts, has tied itself up in legalisms

Ah, the best laid plans of mice, men and GAA administrators. This week Seán Kelly was out on deck, bailing water on behalf of the DRA. Like the Titanic, the Disputes Resolution Authority was a fine idea with one big flaw, and like the Titanic, the DRA hit an iceberg on its maiden voyage and has been taking water ever since.

Seán Kelly said he saw no reason why that first DRA decision, that taken back in May in the Mark Vaughan case, should not be upheld. Given that a large part of the disputed territory in the Vaughan case concerns the locus standi of the DRA, it seemed odd that the president of the GAA should have felt he had sufficient standing to bolster the position of what was established as an independent, quasi-legal body to serve the GAA.

Kelly's problem may just be that in trying to keep the doors of the High Court undarkened by GAA club members he may have introduced a legalistic piece of machinery into the GAA's structures only to discover that the GAA's structures won't withstand close legal inspection.

The DRA, based on the arbitration models so effective in other sports, was intended to streamline all disputes procedures within the GAA. The magic formula of a 500 deposit and a voluntary agreement that all parties be bound by the outcome was intended to lure players, clubs and counties away from the siren song of solicitors promising interlocutory injunctions and grand, satisfying days in court.

Instead, the All-Ireland football championship has been fundamentally shaped by the deficiencies within the architecture of the GAA's new disputes mechanism, and this afternoon's combatants Dublin and Tyrone will have emerged with differing views of the efficacy of the new body.

In Dublin this week Seán Kelly's reported intervention drew, not surprisingly, a furious rebuke from the St Brigid's club, and the entire matter lurched another few feet towards a destination none of us were supposed to see again, the High Court.

Back, on the evening of Friday, May 20th, none of the couple of thousand people watching a double-header edition of the Dublin Senior Football championship in the gloom of Parnell Park could have imagined that what they were peering at through the dusk would have such an effect on the shape of the summer.

Na Fianna beat UCD in a lively game, and in the subsequent match between two of the city's most progressive powerhouse clubs, Kilmacud Crokes prevailed by the width of a point. The second half was notable for two reasons. The introduction of Mark Vaughan swung the game. He scored six points and created a goal, thus confirming himself as the most outstanding young talent in the county. St Brigid's, who owned the ball for most of that second half, ran up a staggering bill of wides.

On the day of the game the Disputes Resolution Authority had cleared Vaughan to play, his participation having been in doubt since his sending off the previous November in the Leinster championship club match against Portlaoise.

In Parnell Park that night there was surprise not just at the presence of the blond forward, but at the fact the DRA wasn't just up and running but a body which had been perceived as a court of last resort had come in with lights flashing and bells clanging and produced a decision which ran surprisingly counter to general practice within the GAA, i.e., that club championship is club championship.

St Brigid's, a large thriving club not short of professional opinion, found the holes in the legal net rather more quickly than their forwards found the posts.

Firstly, as they hadn't been a party to the DRA hearing, they weren't bound by its findings. Secondly, the standing of the DRA itself was suspect as the Central Appeals Council hadn't at the time been established. Article 2.1 (e) of the disputes resolution code states claimants must confirm "all avenues of appeal under the Official Guide have been exhausted".

Thirdly, it was dubious whether the DRA had standing to pass judgement in a dispute which A, originated before its inception and B, hadn't been passed through all the other hoops of the GAA decision making.

Fourthly, the panel which sat that night contained one member, Pat O'Neill of Meath, who wasn't subsequently ratified as part of the panel. The other two members, Michael O'Connell and Brian Rennick, have become ratified members of the panel of lawyers and arbitrators from which the three-person commissions are drawn.

Finally, all arguments at the DRA were based on a faulty rule book which failed to include the relevant amendment made by Cork at the 1996 GAA congress in London. The motion passed back then, but not incorporated into the official guide, reads: "Add to Rule 110: The provincial and All-Ireland championship shall be considered as an extension of the county senior championships and playing eligibility shall be in accordance with Rule 32. Rule affected - Rule 32."

The text of that motion was inserted into the wrong part of the rule book and rule 110 (now rule 114) remained unamended.

"It has been claimed since that the ratification matter isn't material to the outcome," says one prominent St Brigid's member, "but if it isn't, why does the DRA need ratification at all, why can't the secretary pull in any three guys at any time? There is a reason for ratification and one of these guys wasn't ratified. And beyond that they were interpreting the wrong set of rules."

As Kilmacud Crokes see things, the issue should have ended there. They fast-tracked on the basis of urgency to the GAA's court of final appeal. They won the argument. They played Mark Vaughan in good faith.

For St Brigid's, who have offered a replay without Vaughan on the field, there is a realisation that should the matter end up in the last place the GAA want it to be, the High Court, they hold most of the aces.

The case has worked its way back through the GAA's twisted justice system and will come again before the DRA, with a different group of experts empanelled.

St Brigid's will in all likelihood ask to be a "noticed party" at this proceeding. Beyond that they are confident.

"The courts tend to look sceptically on any of these bodies or arrangements whereby parties are asked to relinquish their rights at law," says a club member. "And when the case comes before them what they are more interested in is the process rather than the substance. They aren't especially interested in Crokes versus Portlaoise. They'll want to know on what basis the DRA was set up, how it fit into the GAA's structures and rules, what was the basis for ratification, what was the position of affected parties not represented at hearings, et cetera."

THE SIGHT of the DRA's very first case winding up buried deep in the heart of the Four Goldmines will of course be an irony to gladden the hearts of all those cynics who believe it is easier to count the number of angels who might congregate on a pinhead than to calculate the number of lawyers necessary to hammer out an agreement about their rights to gather on the pinhead.

Opinions are varied on how Vaughan's nettlesome entanglement in what should have been a straightforward suspension case has affected his summer. The Leinster Council and the president of the GAA have gone out of their way to state that in their view he is entitled to play for Dublin as the dispute unravels.

He hasn't yet served a suspension for being sent off against Portlaoise, and nobody knows if he will or could incur a suspension for being an illegal player against St Brigid's.

One Dublin administrator noted this week, though, with some mischief that the county team were unworried: "If somebody was to, say, fall knees first on to Mossy Quinn then Mark Vaughan would be on as the substitute free-taker. Simple as that."

Either way, the entire business has been an unnecessary distraction to a young and talented player making his way in the game.

The business of falling kneesfirst on to an opponent but landing on one's feet within the GAA justice system brings us to the next great talking point of the GAA's great big adventure.

When Ryan McMenamin brought a touch of the World Wrestling Federation to John McEntee's chest during one of the crazier passages of the Ulster final, the referee, Michael Collins, deemed it a yellow-card offence.

The CDC took a look at the video evidence upon which the Tyrone player is nailed bang to rights and arrived at a sterner view. The CDC said McMenamin should serve four weeks. The DRA subsequently said no, Ryan McMenamin shouldn't serve any suspension at all.

Between the jigs and the reels McMenamin had a legally imposed rest for the game against Monaghan and was back refreshed and typically brilliant for the game against Dublin.

The impact of the DRA's deliberations in August have had a profound impact on the football championship and their influence may continue to be felt.

The GAA has found it important and necessary to be able to review the mistaken or inadequate decisions of referees. Foul play often goes unseen and often goes unpunished.

Three years ago the old GAC, then under the chairmanship of Paraic Duffy, sought to formalise the process of intervention. The initiative in strengthening yellow-card punishments as meted out by referees into red-card offences on subsequent inspection was boosted and copperfastened by the backing of Central Council. When the DRA came to the McMenamin business they, in the way of their profession, finecombed the Duffy report looking for weaknesses.

The panel (all linked, much to Dublin's chagrin, with Dublin clubs) had a distinctly legal bent, and legal minds don't switch off. They looked for the holes other lawyers might look for.

They ignored the Central Council ruling and fished an ambiguity out of the Duffy report and decided the CDC had no remit to up McMenamin's case to red-card status.

Thus a mere discussion document was used as part of the ratio decidendi (the basis for a judicial decision) in upending a rule ratified by Central Council and protected by Article 1.3 of the GAA's own rule book.

So the entire area of intervention has become murky. For Tyrone it was all good. Peter Canavan could (quite rightly) have his Ulster Council red card rescinded by use of video evidence while Ryan McMenamin could walk away with a misdemeanour on his rap sheet rather than a felony.

The shock waves spread outwards, and Armagh, who had been facing the prospect of playing Laois with a vastly weakened midfield, were surprised and grateful to realise they had been given byes in the cases of Ciarán McKeever and Paul McGrane.

The McKeever case was an upgrading of a yellow card and was expected to follow the precedent in the McMenamin case. McGrane was a good deal more fortunate to escape, given that his striking charge hadn't been dealt with by a referee in the first place.

For the moment, though, the issue of disciplinary intervention on the basis of video evidence lies in abeyance. Should Tyrone and Armagh meet in a semi-final in eight days' time and should their familiarity with each other breed some more contempt for the rules, what recourse has the GAA left itself with?

At the end of the day, the Vaughan, McMenamin and Armagh cases all run contrary to common sense in that most GAA members if asked would say a club-championship suspension should begin at the start of the following year's club championship, not if and when a club next reaches the provincial stages. Most GAA members would say Ryan McMenamin and Paul McGrane deserved a month's suspension.

By seeking to avoid the occasional spectre of High Court action the GAA has handed its rule book and structures over to lawyers.

"Shiteology," said Tommy Lyons, chairman of Kilmacud Crokes, when reviewing the tangled mess of the Vaughan case.

Shiteology may be a legally different animal to arseboxing, but most GAA members would grasp the meaning.

"The lunatics have taken over the asylum," said a Brigid's man. "We all have to wait and see."