Donegal officials not taking Campbell’s case to Disputes Authority

DONEGAL will not be taking Paddy Campbell’s case to the Disputes Resolution Authority-despite an extraordinary public protest at the end of last Sunday’s match.

Following a marathon meeting of the county executive it was decided not to pursue the much publicised matter any further.

“We are pursuing the matter no further” said PRO Sean Perry who declined to comment any further.

It is believed that prohibitive costs was a major factor in their decision to withdraw.

Donegal officials were also finally given an official explanation for the delay in dealing with Campbell’s case last weekend — six weeks after the incident that led to the full-back’s suspension.

Members of the Central Disciplinary Committee met originally to examine the evidence against Derry’s Enda Muldoon who was sent off for retaliating on Campbell during the Ulster semi-final in Clones on June 18.

GAA president Nickey Brennan said: “Because the members of the committee had looked at the video in relation to Enda Muldoon, they had effectively disenfranchised themselves from sitting in on the Campbell case.

“However, by a stroke of good luck – or call it bad luck in Paddy’s case – three members of the CDC were not present that night so they could sit in on it. The people who viewed the video could do the prosecuting and the others could hear the case.”

That was only the beginning of the delays, however. One of the three members then fell ill and went into hospital for two weeks which meant the CDC could not adjudicate on the matter.

A verdict was finally delivered which saw Campbell miss last Sunday’s qualifier defeat of Fermanagh while he will also sit out Saturday’s All-Ireland quarter-final against Cork.

The irony is that, had the three CDC members attended the initial hearing against Muldoon, it would have been technically impossible to bring a case against Campbell under the GAA’s own regulations.

Steps were taken at the weekend to speed up the disciplinary process with immediate effect so that cases could be dealt with swiftly.

However, Mr Brennan pointed out that, even if the process was condensed significantly, it would still be a race against time to have it completed in the space of a single week.

“There are quite a number of stages that I would like you to appreciate – viewing the video, maybe getting the referee’s report, notifying the player, the player waiving his rights, the case going to the CDC, then you have the appeal, and assemble the various people and maybe then a DRA case.

“It can be ambitious to get it all done. I’m talking in the context of a game being played the next Saturday after a game.”

A new disciplinary system will come into operation on January 1 but the GAA policy of handing out time-specific bans in favour of match bans remains in an era when the amount of games played in the championship has mushroomed.

Mr Brennan said: “There may very well be but that’s a matter for another occasion and another forum.”