Duffy says GAA reputation damaged by ‘bitegate’

GAA Director General Paraic Duffy believes the association’s reputation has suffered from the furore surrounding the disciplinary process into a biting incident.

Donegal’s Paddy McBrearty had claimed he was bitten by Dublin’s Kevin O’Brien. However, the case fell apart when the Tir Chonaill man failed to appear at a Central Hearings Committee meeting in Croke Park.

“What made this a difficult case was there was no evidence,” said Duffy on RTÉ Radio.

“There was no video evidence. The tv coverage didn’t capture it. No independent witnesses so the CCCC were dealt a very poor hand. They tried to deal with the case as best they could.

“They laid the charge down but short of somebody admitting it and owning up to it the only way of producing an outcome was that the player would attend and say, ‘I was bitten by...’ He chose not to do that and that’s the player’s right not to do that.

“From the GAA’s point of view I accept that it has been damaging. It has damaged the reputation of the association that a player suffered a bite and nobody has been held to account but it certainly wasn’t the fault of the procedures, the process. The point that Liam O’Neill made afterwards was very simply that he was disappointed and I would share that disappointment because nobody has been held to account for what happened to Paddy McBrearty.”