FORDE SET FOR LEAGUE FINAL DESPITE SUSPENSION

TIPPERARY star Jason Forde will be available for selection for Sunday’s Allianz League final, despite facing a two-match ban. Forde and Wexford manager Davy Fitzgerald were both notified yesterday of proposed suspensions in the aftermath of last Sunday’s League semi-final in Nowlan Park, which they are both expected to contest. Forde, who used his hurl to push away Fitzgerald after the latter made an illegal incursion onto the pitch, is understood to have been hit with a category IV infraction, which states that a player who commits ‘any type of assault on an opposing team official’ faces a two-match ban. As Forde was not sent off in the game, he is eligible for selection for Sunday’s final clash with Galway at the Gaelic Grounds with a Tipperary source insisting the matter will be ‘dealt with’ after the game. That means Tipp will contest the charge — a 72-hour window to do so closes at 10am on Monday — and turn to the Central Hearings Committee (CHC) in a bid to have the suspension overturned. A two-match ban for Forde would see him miss out on the All-Ireland champions’ eagerly awaited Munster Championship opener against Cork on May 21. And should they win that game, he would also miss a Munster semi-final meeting with Waterford (June 18) or his

team’s opening match in the qualifiers. Meanwhile, Wexford GAA chiefs were understood to be meeting last night to decide whether they will fight the eight-week ban imposed on Fitzgerald. It means that if the ban sticks, Fitzgerald will not be on the line for his team’s Leinster semi-final clash with Kilkenny on June 10 — the eight-week ban will elapse the following day. Wexford and Fitzgerald had been privately resigned to a onematch ban for a breach of match regulations, which would have seen him sitting in the stand for his team’s opening-round Championship clash against a qualifier from the round-robin stage. ‘We are going to sit around the table in the next 24 hours and discuss our options,’ said Wexford chairman Derek Kent yesterday. ‘I am not going to dictate what Wexford does, there is a management team in place and we will discuss it.’