NACB receives 31 motions

By Eamonn Kelly

Thirty-one motions were submitted to the recent North American County Board GAA convention, which was held at the Philadelphia Marriott West Hotel.

Seven of the motions were either ruled out of order or withdrawn by the clubs that submitted them. As expected, several motions were submitted regarding the present structure of the annual playoffs. Following the passage of a motion from Washington, D.C., Gaels, the Board issued a document that outlined a set of rules and guidelines to be implemented by the host playoff city. Another junior football club, the Seattle Gaels, requested the board to investigate the feasibility of holding regional Junior football playoff prior to the National playoffs. Since no structural changes will take effect for the 1999 playoffs in Chicago the Seattle motion will be down for discussion at next year’s convention.

There was much debate on the subject of team sheets and in particular the failure of many playoff teams not following the guideline set in the bylaws. Registrar Gannon stressed that guidelines pertaining to team sheets will be strictly enforced for the 1999 playoffs. A motion submitted by the St. Joseph’s Club in San Jose was passed which states, "That Team Sheets should indicate which players are starting and which are substitutes and only players listed on Team Sheets as provided to the referee before the start of the game may participate. These Team Sheets should also indicate which players are Green-Cards and which players are White-Cards."

Long and lively discussions developed in response to motions requesting changes to rules covering "Summer Visitor Players" from Ireland (white card registrations). Efforts by several football clubs to change Rule R7-B to allow five "Summer Visitor Players" on the field at any one time rather than the current three-player allowance failed as the motion did not gain the required two-thirds majority. However, the hurling clubs were successful in changing Rule R7-C when more than a two-thirds majority voted in favor of increasing from five to seven the number of "Summer Visitor Players" allowed on the field at one time. The convention also approved changing the deadline for the registration of home based (green card) players from April 15 to April 30.