Tighten up rule book, lawyer warns GAA

THE solicitor hired to represent Armagh players Paul McGrane and Ciaran McKeever has warned the GAA that its disciplinary procedures “have been thrown into chaos”.

Joe Rice, who owns practices in Belfast and Armagh, says that the GAA’s rule book has “too many conflicts and contradictions”.

And Rice believes the GAA needs to urgently revise its rule book to avoid losing many more cases.

“The GAA’s rules are now coming under scrutiny from lawyers and they need to be watertight. They are clearly not watertight.

“It seems the flaws that have been highlighted will have to be dealt with at some type of Special Congress sooner rather than later,” he said.

The Armagh County Board hired Rice and Frank O’Donoghue QC to act on the behalf of McGrane and McKeever after they received one-month suspensions from the Central Disciplinary Committee (CDC).

The Armagh duo and Tyrone’s Ryan McMenamin were suspended on the basis of video evidence after the Ulster final replay.

However, the Armagh pair were reinstated by the GAA after Tyrone solicitor Fergal Logan got McMenamin’s suspension lifted.

After studying a copy of the Official Guide, Logan noted that the CDC didn’t have jurisdiction to use video evidence to change a referee’s ruling from a yellow to a red card.

McMenamin’s successful appeal almost automatically cleared McKeever, because the CDC had used video evidence to increase his yellow card to a red.

But McGrane’s case wasn’t so clear-cut. The referee took no action against McGrane. Nevertheless, McGrane was also reinstated by Central Council after a meeting on Saturday morning.

Rice reckons that the GAA opted not to contest McGrane’s case because of the legal advice they would have received.

“I reckon their solicitors would have been told to throw in the towel. They would have told them: ‘Your rules are a shambles and you’ve been caught out’.”

Rice was convinced that the Disputes Resolution Authority (DRA) would have found in McGrane’s favour even if the hearing had gone ahead in the Ardboyne Hotel in Navan this Thursday.

“Our case would have pointed out contradictions, flaws and conflicts within the system. We had very strong legal arguments.

“McGrane was charged with striking with the fist. We employed video experts to look at the reverse angle from the Cusack Stand.

“When we got the video experts to enlarge the image, you could see that McGrane’s gloved fist made contact with the ball. It was equally noticeable that the linesman on the Cusack Stand side didn’t flinch. Jordan came into contact with Paul’s forearm, but the specifics of the charge were striking with the fist.

“We were confident that if we hadn’t won the appeal on legal grounds, then we would have won it on the basis of video evidence,” he said.

Having studied the Official Guide, Rice believes the GAA will find itself facing a stream of appeals “because most cases will be challengeable”.

It seems the GAA is under no doubt about the potential crisis it faces. The decision by the DRA effectively forced them to capitulate to Armagh’s legal pressure.

A statement released by the GAA on Saturday said that the “technical and legal points” which forced them to reinstate McGrane and McKeever would “be addressed as a matter of expediency”.

However, President Sean Kelly yesterday played down the ramifications of the DRA decisions.

“It won’t have major ramifications. It means we will have to tighten up the rule book somewhat, but I expected that all along. I established a rules committee because I felt the rules were outdated.

“They are pointing out technicalities and anomalies in the rules now which are to be addressed. As I said to Central Council on Saturday, it’s a short-term embarrassment for long-term satisfaction.”

When asked if the GAA rule book needed root and branch changes, Kelly claimed the rules sub-committee had a mandate to examine the entire Official Guide, adding all arbitration systems threw up anomalies.

“The beauty of it this year is that, now at least, they’re making decisions and they tell us what was wrong. What happened last year was that an injunction was granted, no one knew why and the case never went to a hearing.

“So, we were learning nothing from it. That the great thing about the DRA. They tell us if there is a weakness, where it is and then we can deal with it.”