McEneaney urges end to officials’ role in video reviews

LEADING referee, Pat McEneaney, has called for an end to the controversial process whereby match officials are asked to revisit decisions made on the field of play.

The Monaghan official, long regarded as the best football referee in the country, was recently asked to review footage of the Derry-Tyrone league match, after which four players had their offences upgraded from yellow cards to red.

McEneaney also believes that the Association’s disciplinary system is bloated by too many layers and should be simplified so that all cases could be dealt with in the space of one working week.

As it stands, individual cases can take two weeks and more to be concluded, as was the situation most recently with Paul Galvin and Eoin Cadogan who received confirmation of their respective suspensions over a fortnight after the counties met in the League.

Had either player decided to take their case to the Disputes Resolution Authority that time-span would have mushroomed still more and McEneaney believes that such a convoluted process is simply unnecessary.

“I would like to get our disciplinary system right, like they have in rugby,” he said. “We would referee a match on the Sunday, a committee would look at the game on the Monday, downgrade or upgrade a decision and the player had the right to an appeal. End of story.

“In other words, we are clinical and clear. People should never come back to the referee like we do. We are probably the only sport in the world that comes back to a referee – when they want to upgrade a decision. They don’t come back when they want to downgrade a decision.”

McEneaney’s words will be music to the ears of Mickey Harte who has railed against this procedure for the last year and the Monaghan official admitted that the Tyrone manager’s assertions about ‘trial by TV’ held a ring of truth.

Former referee, John Bannon, will bring a motion to the floor of next month’s Congress proposing that such reviews be discontinued and McEneaney will be supporting that call at the convention in Co Down.

That said, he pointed out that he was duty-bound to operate in accordance with the regulations in place and that was the viewpoint he took when Croke Park asked that he revisit his decisions in the Derry-Tyrone fixture.

“I know the rules,” he explained. “I am refereeing and I know the system. I know what people expect of me at Croke Park. I like to think that I act with a lot of dignity and respect and that must continue. When I am asked to review something you hold your hands up if you made a mistake and you move on. You make sure that it doesn’t happen the next day.”

Refereeing decisions have been generating considerable debate in recent weeks, which is hardly surprise given that one set or rules is being used for the senior inter-county game and another set for everyone else.

Some of the controversial calls in the recent All-Ireland club semi-finals, the Longford-Westmeath league game and the O’Byrne Cup final would appear to owe their roots to this parallel approach.

McEneaney’s brother, Seamus, who is manager of the Monaghan footballers, has already called for a moratorium on such experiments for a period of three years but Pat defended the changes introduced in recent years.

He is an avid supporter of the fisted pass although he feels players should have been offered the option of accepting the midfield mark or continuing with play, as is the case in Australian Rules.

“Look back to the quick free kick out of the hand, the yellow and red cards. We made a lot of great changes to our game. If you are not looking to the future, to freshen things up, you are going to be left behind.”