Douglas chair and secretary to contest bans
The Douglas GAA chairman and secretary are to contest the proposed 48-week suspensions they were slapped with last week — bans tied to the ineligibility of the Douglas minor football team which won last month’s Rebel Óg East Division 1 league final.
The 17 Douglas minor footballers, five team mentors, two underage club officials, and the aforementioned senior section chairman and secretary, who have all been hit with varying suspensions, will go before the Cork GAA hearings committee on Thursday.
If the hearings committee upholds the proposed sanctions, which includes each of the 17 players being suspended from all GAA activity for a period of 12 weeks, Douglas will then bring their case before the appeals committee.
Club officials are determined to get the 17 players back on the field as soon as possible, unhappy with the punishment being handed down to a group of minor footballers.
The Douglas senior section chairman Aidan O’Connor and secretary Barry O’Donoghue have not yet been informed why they were notified of their 48-week suspensions a week after the initial slew of bans were issued.
The chairman and secretary of the juvenile club and the minor management team also face potential 48-week bans.
The five members of the minor management team are Douglas senior players and so would be prevented from lining out for the club for most of 2020 if the proposed suspensions remain in place.
Douglas competed in, and won, the Premier 1 Minor Football Championship and league competitions earlier this year, run by the Rebel Óg central committee.
Rebel Óg East said that according to GAA rules, having played in the Premier competitions, the 16 Douglas players were not eligible to play at a lower grade in the same season.
