Kelly warns counties against bending rules
FORMER GAA president Sean Kelly warned yesterday that county board chairpersons must not be allowed to ‘take one for the team’. As the GAA crank up the heat on those counties who are suspected to have already breached the September 14 return to training deadline, Kelly insisted ‘across the board’ disqualification of teams has to be the sanction for those in breach. Under the rule being invoked to protect the return-totraining deadline, county chairpersons could be hit with an eight-week ban in the event of proof that their county team had returned to training prematurely, but
Kelly fears that some officials may be happy to take the hit to avoid the ultimate sanction of disqualification. ‘That is the danger and there is no point in having that nonsense where someone “takes one for the team”, Kelly told Sportsmail. ‘County board chairmen should be above the team, they are responsible for the
GAA and its rules in that regard – they have to enforce what is designed to be good for the association. ‘The sanction has to punish all those found to be in breach as well. If it doesn’t, there is no point in just bringing in the chairperson for punishment.’
THE GAA’s great gamble is that its bark will be enough to spook those who believe it will not dare bite.
As ever, only time will tell if those counties – and the anecdotal evidence is believed to have been beefed up by first-hand admissions at last Friday’s meeting between Croke Park chiefs and county board chairman – in breach of the September 14 return to training deadline will place cones and bibs back in storage.
The GAA has a troubled history when seeking to restrict and regulate county teams, not least with an attempted closed season and training camps, with the dismissive manner in which some counties breached the spirit of the latter rule having been raised at last Friday’s meeting.
That may indicate that this time the GAA leadership will not be played for fools on this issue, but yet the sanction they intend to police the September 14 deadline is unlikely to leave county managers quaking in their boots.
While the sanction of breach of rule 7(e), which deals with those charged with “discrediting the association,” allows for county teams to be disqualified, Croke Park has already signalled that it is the county chairpersons who will face censure in the event of a proven breach, with an eight-week ban in the offing.
Former GAA president Sean Kelly believes that it is an inappropriate sanction for a failure to protect clubs from the overreaching power of club managers.
‘It is not a great disincentive. It should be all across the board.
‘Okay, the county chairperson is ultimately responsible but that should not be the person who carries the penalty if that is the situation.
‘Ultimately, if counties are seen to breach it and other counties are abiding by it, those counties who breach it should be barred from competing,’ Kelly told Mailsport yesterday.
While Croke Park’s hope is that this will ‘embarrass’ counties into enforcing the guideline, the reality is that what it perceives to be an ‘embarrassment’ could be confused for a badge of honour in the event of a board official’s eight-week ban buying his county team an edge in preparation.
‘That is the danger,’ admitted Kelly. ‘And there is no point in having that nonsense where someone “takes one for the team.”
‘County board chairmen should be above the team. They are responsible for the GAA and its rules in that regard – they have to abide by the rules and enforce what is designed to be good for the association.
‘The sanction has to punish all those found to be in breach as well. If it doesn’t, there is no point in the world just bringing the chairperson for punishment.’
There is also the sense of mixed messaging from the Croke Park leadership. Only seven days prior to last Friday’s summit with county chairmen, both GAA president John Horan and Director
General Tom Ryan went on the record in ruling out sanctions against any county found to be in breach of the guidelines.
A sanction directed at embarrassing county board officials is likely to be seen as an extension of Horan’s call for teams to be ‘called out’ rather than a declaration that any breach will not be tolerated.
It has left the GAA open to a charge of ‘mixed messaging’ on an issue where clarity is expected.
‘You have to be very clear-cut on this. It is either worth doing or not doing at all. It has to be done right, you impose sanctions and you ensure that the rule is being abided by. If they are breached, the counties that breach them will have to be barred from the competition. I think if that was the situation, you will get adherence to the rules.
‘If there is any wishy-washiness then those rules will be breached because what happens here is that one county hears that a county they are facing have been conducting clandestine training sessions then they feel they feel they have to do the same and it will spiral from there,’ added Kelly.
The GAA’s decision not to allow players whose club campaigns have concluded to return to county training prior to September 14 is unlikely to go down well with some, not least the GPA, but Kelly believes a compromise can be found.
‘If, for instance, a county had their championship finished prior to that I think it should be possible to make an application to Croke Park to see if they could be allowed because you would have to examine if they rushed through the championship just so they could have more time training or
“Any sanctions have to punish all in breach” “You have to be clear-cut on these things”
“They end up
losing interest if not playing”
was it done in a proper manner and that all the stakeholders were happy with it. In that instance, they could make an argument to return prior to the deadline.
‘But you could not, just because a county manager wants to train his team early, end up playing two rounds in one week, maybe midweek and the following Sunday. Condensing the club championship like that is not right.
’This is a glorious opportunity. One of the few positives out of Covid 19 is that the club championship are being played first, so it is a golden opportunity for players to play for their clubs, to show their mettle with their clubs to allow the county managers to assess how they are playing and for them to be able to give 100% and be there all the time.
‘That is a great boost for all the club players and that should not be forgotten,’ added Kelly, who believes that instead of invoking a rule that deals with “discrediting the association”, the GAA needs to bring forward one that will ensure clubs will have access to their players on a sustained basis.
‘I think there is a need for a new rule. Not only have we seen situations where the top players get to play very little for their clubs but we also see players who don’t get to play with club or county.
‘These players are on county panels and even though they may not be making the team, they still find that their time with their clubs is very sparse.
‘That situation is not of their making and I think that is something that has to be looked at to ensure that the club gets a fair crack of the whip, and to be fair to the player as well, because the one thing a player needs to be doing is to be actually playing.
‘There is no point in being on a panel if you are not actually getting to play with club or county. That is absolutely useless for them.
‘They end up losing interest because they are not making it with the county team. And they are not getting much time with the club, so they end up getting disenchanted.’