February 17, 2011
By Staff Reporter
On the surface, any of us forlornly hoping that Gaelic football can eventually clean up its act would have been happy with the size of the sentence meted out. Although it remains puzzling as to why McMenamin only received a yellow card for the offense during the Ulster final replay itself, the Central Disciplinary Committee at least made sure that the punishment eventually fit the crime.
Predictably, Tyrone were enraged at the way the GAA’s judicial process treated their player. Even if both they and their neighbors from Armagh should be ashamed of the way they behaved in the Ulster final replay, they have a point about the way the system operates. As he left the hearing in Croke Park, Mickey Harte was surprised to be overtaken on his way to the elevator by one of the CDC officials. Harte couldn’t understand why one of those charged with examining the evidence and adjudicating the case against McMenamin was leaving the building in such a hurry. Did this man have no part to play in the subsequent deliberations?
This is a legitimate beef and one that highlights how ludicrous it is to have an unwieldy 10-man body overseeing discipline within the association. Sean Kelly has been an excellent president of the GAA but his implementation of the CDC earlier this year was not one of his finest hours. It is oversized and wholly inappropriate. This much alone can be deduced by the number of complaints and controversies it has spawned in just the first four months of its existence. Rather than join the chorus of jeers then, we would like to suggest a radical alternative.
Gaelic football should copy the National Basketball Association and Major League Baseball, two sports in America that have a dean of discipline. Both boast one individual who is the sole authority for all matters relating to on-court and on-field indiscretions. Charged with examining every incident that arises and then quickly handing down a punishment, this person is a high profile, extremely visible figure usually drawn from the ranks of former players or managers.
The beauty of having one full-time employee looking after discipline in inter-county Gaelic football is that it would speed up the process and also promote consistency. Several counties have rightly moaned about the time it takes to get cases heard. With a professional doing the job, there’s no reason why a player wouldn’t know his fate within 48 hours of the final whistle. The discipline czar could sit down on a Sunday and Monday to review video evidence, then telephone the individuals involved and the referee to get their explanations before announcing sentence. This spares people the trip to Dublin and allows teams plenty of time to plan for the next fixture without the individual in question.
Right now, the head of the Central Disciplinary Committee is Con Hogan. The name means very little to anybody not from Tipperary where he apparently served as an able county chairman and Central Council delegate. An experienced GAA official with a lifetime of service to the organization, he is not however what Gaelic football needs at this troubled juncture in its history. The discipline czar needs to be somebody recently associated with the game, a former player or manager whom those still involved at the highest level know, recognize and respect. The perfect candidate would be a prominent player from the 1990s with some coaching experience.
Gaelic football has many serious problems. The tackle remains undefined and partly as a result of that anomaly, thuggery is on the increase. By one account, the average championship match now contains an average of more than one foul every two minutes. This is why the game is crying out for somebody whose full-time job will not just be to dispense justice but also to assist in the cleaning up of the sport.
While his summer would be spent attending games, reviewing video evidence and handing out punishments, the individual in charge could spent winter visiting counties and educating players and managers about the rules, explaining how they will be implemented in the following championship. He could also outline well in advance the scale of punishments for each offence. For instance, they could be warned that striking off the ball is an automatic two-month ban.
These are all methods employed by the NBA and Major League Baseball and the pre-emptive measures would also prevent managers from moaning that they weren’t told about such and such a rule being enforced more severely. By paying somebody like Fermanagh’s Paul Brewster, a good footballer and cerebral character, to devote himself to this task for an initial three-year contract, the GAA would be taking a radical step forward and the first giant leap towards properly cracking down on the dirt-merchants.
Brewster springs to mind simply because he’s loquacious and a good media player. These attributes would be handy for the discipline czar because it would help everybody if the punishments were explained to the media as soon as they were relayed to the players. More transparency should lend itself to less carping about personal vendettas and would remove the age-old charge about faceless men in committee rooms ruining the summers of our most talented athletes. Knowing the decision was made by a respected footballer, and not, as some in Ulster occasionally charge, “a hurling man” would also help everybody accept the new regime.
“These committees will result in greater efficiency, more transparency and a keener sense of justice and fair play all around,” said Sean Kelly at Congress last April when announcing his overhaul of the disciplinary structure. “This was my whole purpose in setting up these bodies and they will create confidence and justice and will end the undesirable and nauseating practice of resorting to courts to adjudicate our problems.”
So far these bodies haven’t achieved anything like that.