Sin bin offers referees comfort

Derry, March 23, 2013. Overcome with emotion, Football Review Committee chairman Eugene McGee sheds a tear upon the announcement that the black card, against the odds, has received 71% support and will come into rule.

Later that day on a bus ferrying delegates back to their hotel, GAA president Liam O’Neill is beaming. In 2009 as head of the disciplinary task force, he had attempted to curb cynicism with the “yellow card” automatic substitution proposal. He was narrowly defeated but in creating the committee headed up by McGee and applying the black card to football only he is right to bask in a sense of accomplishment.

Those who have lined up to take a swipe at McGee for his defence of the black card should appreciate not only the standing of the man in the game but his love for it. O’Neill’s determination to make the games fairer was a noble cause. There are obvious flaws in the application of the black card but the principle behind it remains sound.