GAA must empower officials so we can truly enjoy games

Imagine for a moment no Liam MacCarthy or Sam Maguire Cup presented to a winning captain on a September weekend. Or being kept off the field after a county final in which your club has outscored its opponent after years of you all dreaming of this moment, unable to greet and embrace neighbours and friends, any glorious autumnal homecoming and bonfire put on hold.

Imagine instead the result and moment is only declared in a committee room later that week. Your team only learning they’ve been successful in a not dissimilar way a Rob Heffernan learned that he’d won an Olympic medal: by some bureaucratic decree, after the moment has passed and cooled.

In many ways, that’s how GAA process works. Any result, any cup presented, is only provisional, dependent on there not being a cock-up by one of the teams involved – or more particularly, by the relevant match officials and the wider GAA administration. It’s only when the referee report is received and reviewed by a committee that a result can be finally and definitively declared.