Milton: Black card meeting ‘addresses’ concerns

No championship football referee was reprimanded at Wednesday night’s meeting of match officials.

The 16-member grade one panel were summoned to Croke Park two weeks ahead of a scheduled monthly meeting, arising from black card controversies which have dominated the football championship.

The difficulties experienced by David Coldrick and Joe McQuillan raised concern about the capability of top referees administering the new rule, but GAA spokesman Alan Milton said no referee was held to account at the meeting.

Black card decisions were debated on the night, Milton however, refused to be drawn on whether the errors by McQuillan and Coldrick were thrashed out.

“There have been some issues and they would have been addressed. When teams sit down to have meetings with their manager and there are errors made on the field of play, it is no different. Referees approach their game in exactly the same way,” he said.

Milton rubbished claims it was an emergency meeting, remarking: “RTÉ were outside on the night and you’d swear it was the end of the world.”

“It was a regular referees meeting that was brought forward because it was felt it was timely to look at this issue and get feedback from the referees in the application of the black card, from the commencement of the championship. As with any new initiative, we would monitor it closely and seek feedback from the people asked to implement it.”

The level of criticism directed at football referees since the opening weekend of the championship has disappointed refereeing authorities. Milton insisted referees left the meeting “with renewed enthusiasm and vigour”.

“The black card was used throughout the league and we all knew there would be more intense scrutiny surrounding it once the championship started. Last night was part of that educational process where referees discussed amongst themselves and their own officials the best way to ensure this is applied as best it can be in the games here in.

“There was no situation where it was back to basics or back to the drawing board. Videos were looked at where the black card has been used and in some cases where it might have been used where it wasn’t.”